WINNER: February 2026 FEMALE Filmmakers Festival

A showcase of the best Female Films from around the world today!

AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS:
Best Short Film: FRIDAY NIGHT FLOP
Best Story: DESERTION
Best Performances: LONG ISLAND SOUTH SHORE
Best Human Interest Film: ROOTLESS
Best Student Film: WILD GOOSE
Best Documentary: THE SUPPORT SAKE TOUR
Best Direction: PETRIFIED
Best Experimental: WHERE IS WIND STRANDED
Best Cinematrography: BLINK
Best Visual Design: OPEN
Best Micro-Short Film: SMALL TOWN GIRLS

ROOTLESS, 7min., Canada
 Directed by
Nila is interviewed by an immigration officer in Canada. This marks the beginning of her immigrant journey. She calmly answers the questions, but a chaos of fear and confusion shocks her inner world. A year later, the questions continue on other people’s lips and faces. The last question: “Was it worth it? It prompts Nila to break the fourth wall and look into the camera; the answer is no longer hers alone, but that of whoever is behind the screen.

https://www.instagram.com/tropical_trinity_toronto

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-rootless

Wild Goose, 26min., China
 Directed by Huiting Kang
Wild Goose is a story that profoundly portrays the emotional entanglements and self-discovery of the characters in a northeastern county. The story begins when Cheng Si’an receives the news of her father’s sudden death. She returns to the northeastern county where she has lived for many years and meets Xu Yan, her father’s girlfriend, which sets off a discussion about family, love, kinship and life choices.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-wild-goose

THE SUPPORT SAKE TOUR, 37min., USA
 Directed by Christopher Leyva
When a catastrophic earthquake devastates Japan’s Noto Peninsula, San Diego business owner and mother Raechel is compelled to act. After learning that Seiko Kinshichi has lost both her home and her historic family brewery, Raechel—who once endured a similar loss—feels a profound connection and becomes determined to help a stranger rebuild her life.

https://www.instagram.com/kibou.events

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-the-support-sake-tour

PETRIFIED, 10min., Finland
 Directed by Minna Maria Parkkinen
In the silent film “Hymytyttö”, beautifully frosted pictures disguise a hidden past of trauma and childhood sexual violence. The Smile Statue, awarded to the kindest children in the class, becomes a symbol of something darker. A hummed melody conveys emotions indescribable by words, as images of snow and ice give way to flowing water and wings carrying.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-petrified

Where Is Wind Stranded, 21min., China
 Directed by Ushio
*Two train tickets curl into cocoons in my palm
Rails gnaw through night, grinding old vows to dust
Empty seats sprout thorns
Piercing all dusks that never embarked*

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-where-is-wind-stranded

BLINK, 16min., USA
 Directed by Trude Namara
Liana is trapped in this psychological thriller, an extended metaphor for how friends/communities can be monsters, forcing one to stay in a toxic relationship.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-blink

“Long Island South Shore”, 29min., USA
 Directed by Cat Torres, April Audia
A single mother and her teenage daughter living on the south shore of Long Island. Fighting each other to be seen. Living in the conflict of oppression and dominance. Both fighting to win, both will end up losing.

https://www.instagram.com/longislandsouthshore/

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-long-island-south-shore

DESERTION, 30min., Luxembourg
 Directed by Chantal Lorang
After World War II, a military chaplain remembers the young soldiers who lost their nerve and ran away on the Eastern Front. In military prison he also had to look after Josy Lorang, a Luxembourger who had been forcibly recruited. Josy could no longer endure the Wehrmacht’s atrocities at the front and the attacks on the civilian population, deserted and was recaptured and sentenced to death by a court martial. During the last weeks of his life, he regularly wrote to his young wife and parents from prison, confided in the military chaplain and sought strength in his faith.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-desertion

OPEN, 12min., Australia
 Directed by Vanessa Cobbs, Chrystila Ayom
Lily, a young mother struggling to raise her daughter in near isolation, discovers a locked bus in a nearby yard. What she finds inside pulls her into a fight for survival that will change both their lives forever.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-open

Friday Night Flop, 16min., UK
 Directed by Simon Friedberg, Elliott Gerner
A mother tries desperately to reconnect with her estranged daughter.

https://www.instagram.com/fridaynightflop

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-friday-nght-flop-female

SMALL TOWN GIRLS, 4min., USA
 Directed by Layal Hamdeh
Feeling confined by their small empty town and unambitious locals, Jasmine and Sarah entertain the idea of moving away to New York.

https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-small-town-girls-female

femalefilmfestival's avatar

By femalefilmfestival

The irony of this festival is that its goal is to not be around in 5 years time. To eventually not be relevant because there is zero need to have a festival geared for female talent and female stories because the stories presented in Hollywood and around the world are a balanced showcase of the human experience from both sexes. Our goal is to achieve a lot of success and then fold into oblivion simply because there is no need for this festival. This festival was created by the FEEDBACK Film & Writing Festival as a simple reaction to a strong need to showcase female talent from around the world in a more profound way. When putting together the weekly festival, the administration noticed a lack of a female presence in the stories being shown at the festival. A classic example and analogy to the frustration is how the festival noticed that even the smaller roles in a screenplay were written for a man to play. There was zero reason for this in many stories. How a police officer, or a political campaign manager, for example with 3-4 lines in a screenplay was a "HE" character. Why? And these are the screenplays written by the winners! The talented one who have obtained agents and have began/beginning their careers as a writer.

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