2018 Athena Film Festival: Challenging Cultural Conventions This year, at the Eighth Annual Athena Film Festival, more than 6,500 people came together February 22 – 25 to celebrate community, to issue calls for action and change, and to amplify the voices, stories, and collective power of women. This year’s festival was special in many ways with larger audiences, more diverse programming, increased artistic engagement, wider community participation, and a palpable elevated sense of energy and empowerment. In the past year, with the emergence of #MeToo and Time’s Up, the country experienced a great shift in the cultural narrative. Here at Athena, we are proud of our track record of highlighting the need for gender parity and demonstrating why women’s leadership is crucial to making systemic change. Together we are elevating the voices and stories of fierce and fearless women leaders. We look forward to continuing this work — redefining narratives and challenging preconceived ideas about what leadership looks like. Founded as a joint project of the Athena Center and Women and Hollywood, this engaging weekend of films and panels highlights women’s leadership in real life and the fictional world. Thank you to our more than 6,500 attendees, our nearly 100 community partners, our network of more than 300 volunteers, and our sponsors, co-chairs and Honorary Host Committee members for making this Festival possible.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS YEAR’S CELEBRATION OF FIERCE AND FEARLESS WOMEN LEADERS: On the evening of Wednesday, February 21, we held a kick-off event for LUNAFEST, which celebrates, showcases, and champions women in film. This year, LUNAFEST began raising funds for our friends at Chicken & Egg Pictures, and we were delighted to host the kick-off event at Barnard. During the festival, we screened 46 films including 17 features, 13 documentaries, and 16 shorts, which received great reviews from packed audiences. Many of the screenings included Q&A sessions with filmmakers or the subjects of the films, including the unforgettable standing ovation received by former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, following the international premiere screening of My Year With Helen. On Thursday afternoon, we were thrilled to host a screening of the premiere of the first episode of season three of UnReal, the critically acclaimed series from Lifetime’s A+E
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