A woman in her fifties feels the need of engaging in a social project and begins to rehearse Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell with a group of asylum seekers in a heartwarming tragicomedy (Swiss Heroes). Athletic women volleyball players (66-98 years old) are looking for a worthy opponent for their first tournament after 30 years of training (The Optimists). In Kirgystan, Siberia and Columbia, courageous women fight for their rights and become activists, against trucks, international corporations or patriarchal structures of violence. Their stories are the focus of „Fighters for Social Rights“. Plus, a quiet young woman with a secret love dares to take a step toward independence and causes a chain reaction which changes her whole life (Kertu. Love is Blind). The Women’s Worlds Film Festival brings 35 feature films and documentaries as well as two short film programs from 35 countries to cast deeper insight into women’s lives all over the world.
A special focus is a look at women in precarious work situations: in front of our door as cleaning ladies who very suddenly lose their jobs, in global connections such as in a textile factory in Turkey, where a single mother must accept horrible work conditions, or in the difficult life circumstances of women from Moldavia, who work illegally in Western Europe as cleaning women and caregivers.