Celebrate International Women's Day with this brilliant line up of short films from Feminista Film Festival telling some of the most inspiring stories about women and girls from around the world. The line-up includes eight Festival favourites - films from Wales to Pakistan, featuring swimmers, activists, ballerinas and everyday acts of quiet heroism.

This shorts programme features:

The Honey and the Bears

Dir: Veena Rao, 3 minutes 30

Members of the Harlem Honeys and Bears, a synchronized swim team for seniors, describe the freedom of the water.

The Mirnavator

Director: Sarah Menzies, 11 minutes

Ultra-runners overcome obstacles on every trail. In this film, Mirna Valerio overcomes the negative voices that don’t believe she belongs in the sport.

Life of Pie

Dir: Felt Soul Media, 11 minutes

Singletrack shredders Jen Zeuner and Anne Keller have transformed their small town in Colorado into a mountain biking hotspot with their Hot Tomato Café. It wasn’t easy - some residents of conservative Fruita weren’t quite ready for their “lifestyle”, but they are now indispensable members of the community.

Girls Section

Dir: Kathryn Everett, 13 minutes

Life is hard in remote northern Pakistan – especially for women, who face significant barriers to opportunity and education. For the first time, girls in the region are bravely standing up to tradition for their right to go to school.

My Mom Vala

Dir: RC Cone, 9 minutes

Rivers run through Vala Árnadóttir’s blood and she’s teaching her daughter Mathilda everything she knows. This short film paints the fantastical and mysterious country of Greenland through Mathilda’s fantasies and Vala’s eyes.

Sarah

Dir: Boryana Ivanova, 4 mins

Once a swimming champion in Syria, now Sarah finds herself on a broken boat in the Mediterranean. She knows that this will be the most important race she will ever compete in.

Katie

Dir: Felt Soul Media, 10 mins

Katie Lee was many things: Hollywood starlet turned river rat, guitar-wielding folk singer, uncompromising defender of wilderness and mischievous rabble-rouser. This short film pays tribute to a life shaped by beauty, adventure and the sorrow of a paradise lost, but most of all by uninhibited passion.

Grace

Dir: Rachel Pikelny, 16 mins

Directed by a recent breast cancer survivor, Grace captures the journey of a 36-year-old suburban mum who decides to reclaim her body by covering her mastectomy scars with an elaborate tattoo.

Nela

Dir: Andrew Margetson, 3 mins

A strikingly intimate study of the great classical ballerina Marianela Nuñez as she dances to Nina Simone, choreographed by Will Tuckett.

My Big White Thighs and Me

Dir: Hannah Maia, 25 mins

A story about womanhood, miscarriage, healing, loving your own skin & freezing your bum off in cold water. Multi award-winning My Big White Thighs encourages us all to turn down the volume on the demands of the world and to celebrate the quiet heroism of a female life and it’s body.

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