From one's intimate relationships to their communities or society at large, these shorts explore nuanced and multifaceted experiences of womanhood, gender, identity, and expression, with a particular focus on motherhood, reproductive justice, and the many forms of violence that shape and challenge them. Central to the program is the exploration of female choice – the desire, or refusal, to become a mother – and the social, cultural, and political forces that surround this decision.
🎤 Films are screened in their original language, with Ukrainian and English SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing) and audio description, which can be used through the Podyv app.
❗ These films may contain potentially triggering or disturbing elements, such as violence, blood, and medical misogyny.
🔞 Age restrictions: 16+
This program is supported by the British Council Ukraine and Heinrich Boell Foundation, Kyiv Office - Ukraine.
Program partner of the screening: Reclaim the Frame (UK)
Other screenings of the program: September 10, 17:40,Cinema Zhovten | Anschlag
MADE OF SUGAR
Director: Clàudia Cedó
Country: Spain
Duration: 25
Maria is 30 years old, has an intellectual disability and a desire deep inside: she wants to be a mother. The lack of understanding towards her desire will lead her to a fight for her rights, to an uncomfortable rebellion to recover the decision-making power over her own body.
BLOODY MESS
Director: Megan Wennberg
Country: Canada
Duration: 9
When my period went nuts, I thought my uterus was out to get me because I hadn’t given it a baby. It turns out I had fibroids.
PUERPERA
Director: Yelyzaveta Sherstnova
Country: Ukraine
Duration: 11
Facing the threat of a nuclear war, a young Ukrainian woman is forced to decide between safety and bodily autonomy.
THE TRUCK
Director: Elizabeth Rao
Country: USA
Duration: 13
In the heat of young love, a Chinese American teen and her boyfriend set out to buy the morning after pill in post-Roe America.
THE YEARS WHEN I DIDN'T FILM
Director: Froukje van Wengerden
Country: Netherlands
Duration: 24
A cinematic essay about the chaotic experience of time in which the filmmaker expresses her transformative experience of motherhood through intimate correspondences, still photographs of her birthplace, and Dutch archival footage.