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black placard stating on \"WELL BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY\" on white table
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Culture > Entertainment

This Film Festival Celebrates Kickass Women, & We Are So In

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Isabel Calkins

For the seventh year in a row, the Athena Film Festival will celebrate women and leadership through film, discussion and commemoration. The four-day festival is truly one of a kind with its dedication to elevating “female voices and stories that inspire and empower a new generation of filmmakers and individuals” through showcasing “films about powerful and courageous women leaders in real life and the fictional world.” So basically, this festival is dedicated to kickass women. Sign us up!

This year, the festival will take place Feb. 9-12 at Barnard College in New York City and will be honoring an incredible lineup of women. In the past, award winners have included Jodie Foster, Jeanine Tesori, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Sherry Lansing—all women who are known for making a difference in the artistic community. This year’s honorees—Eve Ensler, Patricia Riggen and Regina K. Scully—are no exception. 

The festival will include features, documentaries and shorts directed by both women and men. Although we can’t wait to see each of the films featured, there are a few in particular that we are especially looking forward to, beginning with Queen of Katwe. Directed by Mira Nair and starring David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong’o, this movie follows a young girl set on accomplishing her dream of becoming an international chess champion. By the looks of it, it’s sure to be a tearjerker. 

Another film that’s bound to be a crowd favorite is HBO’s Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. With the recent deaths of these Hollywood icons, the film provides an intimate look at what made the mother-daughter pair so spectacular. If you’re attending the festival, this is one documentary you do not want to miss. 

And that’s not all. There are dozens of fantastic films, featuring Rachel Weisz, Catherine Keener, Jeanne Tripplehorn and other legendary women. Visit the Athena Film Festival website for more information.

Athena Film Festival 2017 Trailer from Athena Film Festival on Vimeo.

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Isabel is a currently the Evening & Weekend Editor at Her Campus and a student at New York University in the Global Liberal Studies program with a concentration in Contemporary Culture and Creative Production. When she is not watching Gilmore Girls or playing with puppies at the local pet store, she spends her time freelancing for numerous publications about celebrities and life. You can find her work on the websites of Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Seventeen, Elle, and Buzzfeed. Follow her on Instagram at @isabelcalkins.