WVN Film Festival.
A women’s rights documentary film festival for emerging filmmakers.
2025 Film Festival Events.
Dates & Deadlines
- August 1, 2024 – Opening Date
- October 1, 2024 – Early Bird Deadline
- November 8, 2024 – Regular Deadline
- November 29, 2024 – Late Deadline
- March 26 – April 30, 2025 – Festival Run
Celebrate the Winners.
Presenting the 2024 Film Festival Winning Films!
Awards.
*Leslie J. Sacks Grand Prize – Best Documentary Feature – $3,500
Best Documentary Short – $2,000
Lantos Prize for Best Human Rights Documentary – $2,000
Best Emerging Filmmaker – Documentary Feature – $1,500
Best Emerging Filmmaker – Documentary Short – $1,000
Best Creative Feature Documentary – $1,500
Best Creative Short Documentary – $1,000
Best Youth Documentary Short – $500
*Our grand prize winner is also invited to a live screening and Q&A of their film in Los Angeles.
Festival Sponsors.
Festival Partners.
The Celluloid Ceiling.
Women filmmakers are out there, so why is women-produced content still underrepresented?
- In the United States, women face difficulty in fundraising and attracting interest in films about women and individuals from underrepresented groups
- In Europe, only 16% of available funding goes to films directed by women.
- Stereotypes about women's skills and ambition, and male-dominated networks remain a powerful barrier to entry.
Women Filmmakers: Shattering That Ceiling.
Our independent film festival challenges gender-based stereotypes both on and off the screen. To support this vision, our online film festival:
- We provide a platform for emerging filmmakers telling essential, authentic stories.
- We support our filmmakers with cash prizes and visibility.
- We connect our filmmakers with each other and with film industry professionals.
Our Approach.
- We seek films that address or shine light upon issues affecting women and/or girls through a social-change lens.
- We accept documentary films in the short, feature, and youth categories; and award $10,000 in cash prizes each year.
- We receive submissions from August through November, and celebrate the winners and the film festival in March during Women's History Month.
“The Women’s Voices Now Film Festival provides a rare and special platform for unheard voices and issues, and is a creative boon for independent women filmmakers around the world.”
– Dr. Meena Longjam, Filmmaker
Empowering People, Inspiring Social Change.
Women’s Voices Now defines social change as a shift in the status quo, an expansion of justice, that is an outcome of individuals and groups who come together as a collective.
It requires the active participation of individuals and civil society (organizations) that work collaboratively to raise public awareness, shift cultural and media narratives, and demand remedy to social problems that hinder girls and women from realizing their full potential.
The documentaries we seek in our film festival serve to humanize, simplify, and embody complex issues, concepts, and ideas, so as to engage audiences in such a way that moves them from empathy to action.
