Women's Voices from Five Continents Come to La Réunion Film Festival This Fall

Women’s voices from Kabul to Tehran, from New Orleans to Tehran, from Spain to the Indian subcontinent will fill screens across La Réunion when the island hosts its seventh Women’s Film Festival, “Le Temps des Femmes” (The Time of Women), from September 23 to October 4, 2026. For twelve days, residents across seven cities will have access to a curated selection of short and feature films, documentaries, and animations exploring the lives, struggles, and aspirations of women worldwide, with free entry at partner venues and reduced rates at Cinépalmes in Saint-Denis.

The festival is organized by Ciné Festival Océan Indien and the Union of Reunionese Women, with support from Femmes en Avant, CEVIF, and De Z’elles & des Z’ils Océan Indien. Its scope extends well beyond cinema. Programming tackles fundamental freedoms, violence against women, exile, emancipation, discrimination, equality, political resistance, and women’s roles in history and science, creating a public forum as much as a film event. Conferences, debates, and meetings with filmmakers and cinema professionals will run alongside screenings, giving audiences structured space to engage with the stories presented.

Works drawn from France, Iran, Afghanistan, Spain, the United States, and other countries form the 2026 program. Among the most urgent is “Afghanistan: The Impossible Journey of Women,” a documentary by Marine Courtade and Mortaza Behboudi filmed clandestinely, capturing the voices of young Afghan women living under severe restrictions imposed by Taliban rule. Audiences in Saint-Paul can attend a screening on September 28 at Lespas Leconte de Lisle, with a second showing in Le Tampon on October 3, both with the filmmakers present for discussion.

Afghanistan appears again in “Like You Are Beautiful: Being Twenty in Taliban Country,” directed by Margaux Benn and Solène Chalvon-Fioriti. The film follows Sofia and Nigina, two young women who use their beauty salon as one of their last spaces of freedom and resistance. It is a quiet, precise portrait of survival.

Meanwhile, Iran’s upheaval reaches the screen through “Iran, the Internal War,” by Mortaza Behboudi, Anne-Charlotte Gourraud, and Kajin Azadi. Shot clandestinely and documenting Iran’s situation in 2026, the film amplifies voices of people caught in the country’s turmoil. Screenings are set for September 29 in Saint-Paul and October 3 in Le Tampon.

The festival also brings stories of institutional resistance closer to home. “The Nevenka Case,” directed by Icíar Bollaín, chronicles Nevenka Fernández, a young Spanish municipal councilor who exposed harassment and misconduct by a powerful political figure, marking Spain’s first political “#MeToo” case. It screens September 30 in Saint-Paul and October 4 in Saint-Joseph. Theodore Melfi’s “Hidden Figures” recounts the African-American scientists whose calculations helped drive the American space program, while “Olympe, a Woman in the Revolution,” by Julie Gayet and Mathieu Busson, revisits Olympe de Gouges and her fight for women’s rights during the French Revolution.

Martinique filmmaker Euzhan Palcy’s “The Battle of Ruby Bridges” tells the story of Ruby Bridges, the first African-American child to integrate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. Screenings are scheduled for September 27 in Saint-Gilles and October 3 in Saint-Joseph.

The seventh edition includes several world premieres. On October 3 at the Casino du Port, “La Furia,” directed by Gemma Blasco, will open, following a young actress who rebuilds her life and channels her pain through theater after surviving rape. That same day, British filmmaker Marc Silver’s documentary “Molly vs the Machines” will also premiere, examining a father’s struggle following his 14-year-old daughter’s suicide and the broader impact of digital platforms and algorithms on young people. That second premiere carries particular civic weight, raising questions about platform accountability that extend far beyond the screen.

The broader program spans “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, “Radioactive” by Marjane Satrapi, “Angry Indian Goddesses” by Pan Nalin, “Ten” by Abbas Kiarostami, “Bye Bye Tibériade” by Lina Soualem, “The Williams Method” by Reinaldo Marcus Green, “Not Without My Daughter” by Brian Gilbert, and “I Won’t Take It Anymore” by Gustave Kervern. Younger audiences will encounter “Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window” by Shinnosuke Yakuwa, and school screenings of the animated film “Parvana” by Nora Twomey will bring the program into classrooms.

Among the festival’s notable guests is Mortaza Behboudi, a Franco-Afghan war correspondent and filmmaker detained in Afghanistan in January 2023 and held for ten months before his release. He has also covered the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement clandestinely in Iran. Marine Courtade, an independent journalist and former France 24 correspondent in Ukraine, brings documentary experience from assignments across Ukraine, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Chad, and the Central African Republic. Journalist and filmmaker Anne-Charlotte Gourraud, known for work with Envoyé Spécial, Faut Pas Rêver, and Arte Reportage, is also among the announced guests.

A conference titled “Women’s Resistance and Engagement Today,” led by political scientist Christiane Rafidinarivo in partnership with Les Amis de l’Université, will examine contemporary forms of women’s resistance, engagement, and action in modern societies.

From its free screenings to its public debates, “Le Temps des Femmes” positions cinema as a civic instrument, one that connects residents of La Réunion to histories unfolding in Kabul, Tehran, New Orleans, and beyond. Whether the conversations sparked inside those seven screening cities translate into broader public engagement remains the festival’s open and animating question. Full program details are available at https://www.megazap.fr/La-Reunion-le-Festival-du-Film-de-Femmes-revient-du-23-septembre-au-4-octobre-2026-pour-une-7e-edition-engagee_a16971.html.