Toronto Women Film Festival's dedication to women's cinema
Updated: Jan 29, 2025
The Toronto Women Film Festival is dedicated to supporting, recognizing, and empowering women's voices in cinema. It honors and celebrates films by talented women filmmakers from around the globe. Over the past few years, the festival has showcased films by female directors at venues like Carlton Cinema, Innis Town Hall at the University of Toronto, and various art centers and digitally through the annual women's catalogue of the Toronto Film magazine. The festival holds a seasonal competition, and hosts live annual screening events each September.
Each season, the festival team nominates and selects films and artists for different sections of the seasonal competition. The festival focuses on female-driven stories and independent female directors, producers, writers, actresses, cinematographers, editors, and all female artists contributing to the cinematic language as women in film. It seeks to discover, promote, screen, and award female filmmakers and stories about women in societies worldwide.
In recent years, the Toronto Women Festival has become one of the most popular festivals dedicated to female talent in the film industry. The jury and programmers have been selected from award-winning artists working in media from Canada, the United States, Austria, Germany, Japan, Iran, India, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and worldwide. The committee of the festival proudly announced the winners of the latest seasonal edition of the festival on January 25.
Best Narrative Feature & Best Director
Love, Danielle
Director: Marianna Palka
Best Narrative Short
The Girl
Director: Mandy Kowalski
Best Feature Documentary
Echoes from Borderland
Director: Lara Miléna Brose
Best Short Documentary
Né à Belfond. Versteckt geboren
Director: Christa Miranda
Best Experimental
Director: dasol jeon
Honorable Mention Experimental Feature
If This Boy Died
Director: Anne-Li Ramirez van de Graaf
Honorable Mention Experimental Short
Directors: Kristin Alexander, Maggie M. Bailey
Best Comedy
It ain't a hard question
Director: Gabriela Ivette Sandoval Torres
Best Horror
Lifeboat
Director: Vanessa-Tatjana Beerli
Best Animation
Raka
Director: Daneille Jacobs Joubert
Best Web/TV/Pilot
Before Anyone Else
Director: Samantha Barrett
Best Music Video
Turning Tables
Director: Luca Celine Müller
Best Student Film
Dollhouse
Director: Keshet Gadish
Best Actress
Cécile-Gex Charnay
Immeasurable
Best Cinematographer
Petra Korner
The Mariana Trench
Best Scriptwriter
LE TALLEC Anne
The wrong door
Best Producers
Megan Follows-Penny Noble-Marie Dame
Stealing Sky
Best Music
Lena Rastegaeva
Best LGBTQ
Double Booking Part of the Scare BNB franchise
Director: Christin Baker
Best Human Rights
The Echoes
Director: Gamze Tanrıvermiş
Best Film About Women
Stay At Home, Mom
Director: Mary Zappulla
Best Environmental
Where the Trees Grow
Director: Helle Løvstø Severinsen
Best First-Time Filmmaker
And We Fly Through Days
Director: Janne Schmidt
Best thriller
The Postcards
Director: Jasmine McLaughlin
Best Unproduced Script
THE PORTRAIT
Writer: Susan Eileen Jizba
Best Historical Film
LONE STAR THREE
Director: Karen Stirgwolt
Best Biographical Film
Three Sisters in a Sketchbook
Director: Romana Turina
Best Sport Film
Cali Girls
Director: Jen Whalen
Best Youth Artist
Polly Gallant-McLean
MONICA'S NEWS
Honorable Mention Student Film
Ashlee Sung
The Price of Divinity
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I really liked seeing a festival highlight specific genres like horror and comedy real estate agent headshots alongside the usual astrocartography move documentary and narrative picks. It shows they’re not just looking for one type of “women’s astrocartography calculator free story,” but celebrating all kinds of filmmaking. Makes the whole lineup feel more vibrant and real.
I love that they’re showcasing films at places like Carlton Cinema and Innis Town Hall—those are such cool, local spots. It really makes the festival feel more accessible how to put yourself in burning bridges video and part of the community, not just some exclusive industry event. Seeing a festival use familiar venues makes me more likely to check it out.
Submitting to a women-led seasonal festival once did the reverse of what I expected: my rejected short led to a producer intro, not a slot. Seeing Mandy Kowalski’s The Girl and Né à Belfond. Versteckt geboren in the same January 25 list, I started treating each category like tracking Pokemon cards’ market values—different metrics, same collector’s thrill. It made the Carlton Cinema screenings feel less like gatekeeping and more like a trading floor.
January 25's winners list pairs Love, Danielle with both Best Narrative Feature and Best Director for Marianna Palka. When one film sweeps both categories, does the seasonal jury cast separate ballots for feature and directing, or is the director award folded into the top prize? A festival-awards and submission listing might clarify the rules, but the page doesn't. Also curious whether the Carlton Cinema screenings include Q&As.