Are We Radical Enough? Reclaiming and Redefining Women's Authorship in European Cinema
Over the past decade, women filmmakers from Europe have gained unprecedented international visibility, bringing deeply personal, politically charged, and formally ambitious works to major festivals around the world. Yet, despite this momentum, fundamental questions remain: who has the power to shape narratives, whose perspectives are still marginalized, and what does it mean to be a "radical" female author today?
This conversation explores how women filmmakers negotiate authorship within societies still shaped by patriarchal structures, political instability, and contested histories. Is the act of telling certain stories in itself already radical, or is there still room and necessity for more disruptive artistic and political gestures?
Bringing together directors from different generations and backgrounds, the panel will reflect on creative freedom, institutional expectations, self-censorship, representation, and the evolving relationship between personal experience and political expression.
SPEAKERS
Jelena Maksimović
Director, Editor, Educator (RS)
Blerta Basholli
Teona Strugar Mitevska
Director, Sisters & Brother Mitevski (BE)
MODERATED BY
Celine Sciamma
TIME
August 20th, 2026
12:00 – 13:00 (CET)
LOCATION
Festival Garden
Celine Sciamma
Céline Sciamma is a French screenwriter and film director. She wrote and directed Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011), Girlhood (2014), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Petite Maman (2021). She regularly collaborates with directors as Claude Barras for My Life as a Zucchini (2016) and lastly Noémie Merlant for The Balconettes (2024). For the past years she has been mostly teaching in cinema schools and universities in Europe. She made the documentary short film « This is how a child becomes a poet » (2023) shot in poet Patrizia Cavalli’s home. Her last film « Tutti Frutti » (2026) was made for the Centre Pompidou.
Jelena Maksimović
Jelena Maksimović is a Serbian director, film editor, and educator. She holds a master's degree from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and has been lecturing at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade since 2015. Her work as a film editor and director has screened at major international film festivals, and she has received numerous awards for her editing. Her creative practice encompasses music videos and video art, and she regularly teaches at film workshops across the region.
Blerta Basholli
Blerta Basholli is a Kosova-born writer and director known for her realist visual style and films exploring social and gender issues. Her early works include the short films Mirror, Mirror… (2006), Gjakova 726 (2009), and Lena & Me (2011), which were selected and received awards at numerous international film festivals.
Her debut feature, Hive (2021), premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it made history by winning the Grand Jury Prize, the Directing Award, and the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition—the first film ever to sweep all three awards in that category.
Her second feature, Dua (2026), premiered in La Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival and received the SACD Award for Best Screenplay, shared with co-writer Nicole Borgeat.
Teona Strugar Mitevska
Macedonian-born Teona Strugar Mitevska started as a child actor, trained as a painter and graphic designer, and studied film at NYU Grad-Tisch School of Arts. She directed her first short, VETA (2001) that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival- Special Jury Mention and has been making films ever since: HOW I KILLED A SAINT (2004), Rotterdam Film Festival-Tiger Competition; I AM FROM TITOV VELES (2007), Berlin and Cannes Film Festivals (ACID); THE WOMAN WHO BRUSHED OFF HER TEARS (2012), Berlin Film Festival; TERESA AND I, TV documentary (2013); WHEN THE DAY HAD NO NAME (2017), Berlin Film Festival, and most notably GOD EXISTS, HER NAME IS PETRUNYA (2019), that also premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in the Competition section, winning the Ecumenical Prize and the German Guild Film Prize. The film received more than 40 awards internationally, most notably the 2019 LUX Prize by the European Parliament and was sold for theatrical release to over 40 territories world-wide. Her awarded sixth feature, THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD, premiered at the 2022 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, and won the Grand Jury prize as well as the Young Jury prize at the 2022 Les Arcs Film Festival, among others. 21 DAYS UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD, a no-budget hybrid feature film premiered in the Giornate Degli Autori at the 2023 Venice Film Festival. Her newest project, MOTHER, her first English-spoken film features Noomi Rapace in the title role. MOTHER was the opening film of the Orizzonti competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival. The film has been sold to over 30 territories worldwide. In 2018, France’s Ministry of Culture awarded her the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters. She lives in Brussels.