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Women's History Month 2025

Women's History Month 2025

Newly updated for 2025! OVID celebrates Women’s History Month with a diverse collection of films about women. This cross-section of films includes a documentary on Chilean activists fighting for a better country, visual artists including Frida Kahlo and women campaigning for safe access to abortion.

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Women's History Month 2025
  • The Activists

    Directed by Melody Shemtov • Documentary • 2017 • 60 minutes

    THE ACTIVISTS: War, Peace, and Politics in the Streets brings to life the stories of ordinary people who tried to stop and end the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At best, activists had limited influence over the conduct of military...

  • And She Could Be Next: Part One - Building the Movement

    Directed by Grace Lee, Marjan Safinia • Documentary • With Stacey Abrams, Rashida Tlaib • 2020 • 111 minutes

    “Episode One: Building The Movement” opens with the powerful reminder that “women of color have been the backbone of our communities forever.” An energetic montage of modern American civi...

  • And She Could Be Next: Part Two - Claiming Power

    Directed by Marjan Safinia, Grace Lee • Documentary • With Stacey Abrams, Rashida Tlaib • 2020 • 121 minutes

    “Episode Two: Claiming Power” takes us to the weeks leading up to election day and focuses on how organizers combat voter suppression in their own communities. At the heart of the episode...

  • Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority

    Directed by Kimberlee Bassford • Documentary • 56 minutes

    In 1965, Patsy Takemoto Mink became the first woman of color in the United States Congress. Seven years later, she ran for the US presidency and was the driving force behind Title IX, the landmark legislation that transformed women’s oppo...

  • Today

    Directed by Su Friedrich • Documentary • 2022 • 57 minutes

    TODAY opens with filmmaker Su Friedrich’s left foot stretched out in front of her as she lies in bed. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirs. Friedrich takes another deep breath and says to no one in particular, “Try to pay attention to the momen...

  • Chez Jolie Coiffure

    Directed by Rosine Mbakam • Documentary • 2018 • 70 minutes

    Sabine attaches a hair weave and gets to work. Her hands move quickly and precisely, as she tightly braids the hair in front of the sign in her salon promising African, European, and American-style coiffure. Sabine is a larger than-life...

  • Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem

    Directed by Ronit Elkabetz & Shlomi Elkabetz • Drama • With Ronit Elkabetz, Menashe Noy • 2015 • 115 minutes

    An Israeli woman (Ronit Elkabetz) seeking to finalize a divorce (gett) from her estranged husband finds herself effectively put on trial by her country’s religious marriage laws, in this ...

  • Fengming, a Chinese Memoir

    Directed by Wang Bing • Documentary • 2017 • 184 minutes

    Often cited as one of the great documentary achievements, Wang Bing’s dazzling tour-de-force — a gripping monologue recounting five decades in the life of a once-ardent socialist in the new China — is a testament to the power of oral histo...

  • Outcry and Whisper

    Directed by WEN Hai and ZENG Jinyan • Documentary • 2020 • 100 minutes

    A performance artist approaches a dais with a quiet formality, then proceeds to slowly and deliberately slice a series of cuts into her face with a razor. A doctoral student/filmmaker, under house arrest and constant surveill...

  • The Passionate Pursuits of Angela Bowen

    Directed by Jennifer Abod • Documentary • With Angela Bowen • 2016 • 73 minutes

    An inspiring film by award winning documentary filmmaker Jennifer Abod, PhD (THE EDGE OF EACH OTHER’S BATTLES: THE VISION OF AUDRE LORDE). THE PASSIONATE PURSUITS provides a window into the life of Angela Bowen who g...

  • The Heretics

    Directed by Joan Braderman • Documentary • 2009 • 95 minutes

    Tracing the influence of the Women’s Movement’s Second Wave on art and life, THE HERETICS is the exhilarating inside story of the New York feminist art collective that produced “Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics” (19...

  • Tina In Mexico

    Directed by Brenda Longfellow • Documentary • 2004 • 60 minutes

    A new independent feature documentary by acclaimed Canadian director Brenda Longfellow, TINA IN MEXICO, follows the tumultuous and epic story of Tina Modotti, revolutionary, bohemian spirit and renowned photographer, acclaimed for h...

  • Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti

    Directed by Laura Mulvey • Documentary • With Miriam Margolyes • 1983 • 29 minutes

    This tautly structured documentary sheds light on the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and Italian photographer Tina Modotti, women icons of the Mexican Renaissance. The film not only explores the two women's a...

  • In the Mirror of Maya Deren

    Directed by Martina Kudlácek • Documentary • With Miriam Arsham, Stan Brakhage, Chao Li Chi, Rita Christiani, Maya Deren • 2002 • 104 minutes

    With In The Mirror Of Maya Deren, documentary filmmaker Martina Kudlácek has fashioned not only a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking and influential...

  • Queen of Lapa

    Directed by Theodore Collatos • Documentary • With Luana Muniz • 2021 • 73 minutes

    Larger-than-life actress, cabaret performer, activist, and proud sex professional since the age of eleven, Luana Muniz - arguably one of Brazil's most famous transgender personalities - shaped a new reality in her...

  • One Day Pina Asked (Chantal Akerman)

    An encounter between two of the most remarkable women artists of the 20th century, ONE DAY PINA ASKED... is Chantal Akerman's look at the work of choreographer Pina Bausch and her Wuppertal, Germany-based dance company. "This film is more than a documentary on Pina Bausch," a narrator announces a...

  • Jane Campion: A Girl's Own Story

    Directed by Jane Campion • Drama • 1984 • 27 minutes

    Beatlemania, the sixties and growing up. Some stories about girlhood: where family is strange, adulthood lonely, and innocence perverse.

    "A beautifully photographed, sharply drawn drama...A lovely debut which will be compared to Jane Campion'...

  • Dam/Age

    Directed by Aradhana Seth • Documentary • 2002 • 50 minutes

    "I suddenly realized… I command the space to raise a dissenting voice, and if I don't do it, it's as political an act as doing it… to stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out."- Arundhati Roy, Author of Booker Prize Winner The ...

  • Apache 8

    Directed by Sande Zeig • Documentary • 2012 • 57 minutes

    For 30 years, the all-female Apache 8 unit has protected their reservation from fire and also responded to wildfires around the nation. This group of firefighters, which recently became co-ed, soon earned the reputation of being fierce, lo...

  • Sacred Water

    Directed by Olivier Jourdain • Documentary • 2017 • 60 minutes

    "If a lot of water flows, the town will be flooded. The water company can close down. We have all the water we need." —Fanny, guest on Flash-FM in Rwanda Vestine Dusabe is a radio host and sex educator with a mission: promoting sexua...

  • How to be a Good Wife

    Directed by Martin Provost • Drama • With Juliette Binoche • 2020 • 110 minutes

    Maintaining a household and stoically submitting to conjugal duty are the skills Paulette Van Der Beck (Juliette Binoche) teaches with fervor in her homemakers institute. Her certainties are shaken when she finds her...

  • Mama Colonel

    Directed by Dieudo Hamadi • Documentary • 2017 • 72 minutes

    Colonel Honorine Manyole, commonly known as 'Mama Colonel,' works for the Congolese police force and heads the unit for the protection of minors and the fight against sexual violence. Having worked for 15 years in Bukavu, in the east of...

  • Riddles of the Sphinx

    Directed by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen • Drama • With Dinah Stabb, Merdelle Jordine, Rhiannon Tise • 1977 • 92 minutes

    Laura Mulvey, author of the seminal essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped to establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study. With Peter Wollen, sh...

  • Life of a Queen

    Directed by Not credited • Documentary • With Queen Elizabeth II • 1960 • 16 minutes

    Compilation newsreel portraying Queen Elizabeth II from her childhood to the early days of her reign, sponsored by the Central Office of Information. This film starts with early footage of the Queen as a girl an...