THE International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) has called for submission of works for the IIFF 2025 awards.
Making the announcement on their Freeway page, the organisers said submissions were underway and the festival would take place from August 22 to 30 in Harare.
The statement said IIFF was calling for long fiction, documentaries and short films in all genres and durations for the main competition as well as non-competition and special competition categories.
To be eligible, films should feature a female in a leading role and in response or resonating with the theme Women Make the World a Better Place.
The theme speaks to how, in the face of a selfish, unsustainable global patriarchal system, women continue to fight for and achieve progress towards more equal and sustainable ways for themselves, their families, the youth, their nations and the planet.
The 2024 IIFF edition had lots of excitement such as the screening of the multi-award-winning film On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, the Friendship Bench and highly informative and career shaping workshops on film scoring, and tackling gender issues.
It is hoped that the 2025 IIFF will surpass last year’s standards.
“The festival is hosted each year by the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa Trust. Founded in 2003, the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFF) is an annual event held in Harare to exhibit films that portray a woman in at least one major role, thus showcasing women’s agency to Zimbabwean audiences in a wide range of communities from urban to rural and providing role modelling for African women to observe other women in film being active, displaying agency and impacting positively on their own lives and the lives of their communities and their nations,” the announcement read.
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It said IIFF is a competitive festival with prizes, the Mharekadzi/Qhawekazi/Shero, being awarded in the Main Competition and several other categories.
“The International Images Film Festival for Women theme for 2025 is Women Make the World A Better Place. Women make up half the world’s population, but everywhere women are excluded from power, wealth and other socio-economic advantages,” the organisers said.
“In Zimbabwe the increasing informalisation of industry and production puts an uneven load on the shoulders of women who find themselves breadwinners in the harsh informal sector, as well as homemakers and caregivers.
“Nevertheless, women remain resolute in their pursuit for a better world for themselves and their communities. Increasingly, women demand their rightful place in economic activities and justice for themselves and other marginalised groups.
“Increasingly women demand a meaningful, dignified life free from harm for themselves and those around them. Women’s leadership styles bring benefits to the institutions they lead, whether at personal, community, national or global level.”
The announcement further stated that IIFF’s film selection takes an intersectional approach to women’s social, economic and personal issues, exploring how gender, race, class, colonisation, patriarchy, neo-fascism, globalisation, digital technology and climate change all impact women’s lives and how women are responding to these challenges which affect women’s security and general global peace-keeping.
“In these ways, IIFF promotes women’s emancipation, gender and other tolerances and understandings, and democratic development,” the announcement further read.
“In addition, IIFF’s many segments, such as New Man and World View, programme films with global perspectives that extend beyond the African context.
“Films competing in these categories may have a male lead, with a female in another lead role.”
