The International Images Film Festival (IIFF), an annual event held in Harare since 2003, is calling for submissions for it’s 2025 edition. Organisers are calling for long fiction, documentaries and short films in all genres and durations. These are submissions for the main competition as well as non-competition and special competition categories. To be eligible, films must feature a female in a leading role.
The festival’s theme for 2025 is “WOMEN MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.” A theme that 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 of being for themselves, their families, the youth, their nations and the planet.
IIFF’s film selection takes an intersectional approach to women’s social, economic, and personal issues, exploring how gender, race, class, colonization, patriarchy, neo-fascism, globalization, 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, the festival seeks to promote women’s emancipation, gender and other tolerances and understandings, and democratic development.
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.
The 2025 festival is set to take place from 22 to 30 August in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The International Images Film Festival for Women is hosted each year by the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa (ICAPA)Trust. Founded in 2003, the annual event held in Harare to exhibit films that portray a woman in at least one major role.
You can find more information and the submission portal here.
