Founded in 2011, the Athena Film Festival champions diverse, nuanced, and complex stories of women leaders through its annual showcase of narrative films, documentaries, and short films, alongside powerful and thought-provoking conversations, and its numerous year-round creative development programs. To date, more than 540 films have been screened at the festival — 90% directed by women or nonbinary individuals — and Athena’s creative development programs have supported more than 700 filmmakers.
The Athena Film Festival Ethos
Women’s leadership takes no singular form. Stories of women leaders, in all their forms and all their complexity, are rarely shown on the big screen. Women whose leadership has been questioned, dismissed or erased, women who have risen up, spoken truth to power, women who empower their communities, inspire and educate, or women who simply survive – these are the stories we want to see. These are Athena stories.
