Five Girls and a Rope

In 1972, 16-year-old Marie-Claire Chevalier was raped and became pregnant. Helped by her mother to have a clandestine abortion, she was finally denounced and arrested. Both faced imprisonment. Gisèle Halimi, their lawyer, transformed their trial into a historic battle. By denouncing an unjust law, they mobilized public opinion and paved the way for the Veil law, legalizing abortion in France. This forgotten struggle resurfaced almost half a century later, in 2019, when schoolchildren proposed that Marie-Claire be made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, transforming what had long been her shame into a source of pride and a symbol for future generations.

When a young social elite at the turn of the nineteenth century explores life as a modern woman, she risks losing the man she loves and a certain future.

Anthology film. Five heroines from five different, yet similar worlds face social and systematic oppression and injustice. We follow their journeys as they struggle for hope and a better life.

Facing the threat of a nuclear war, a young Ukrainian woman is forced to decide between safety and bodily autonomy.

Based on the inspiring true story of Lilly Ledbetter, an ordinary Alabama tire factory supervisor who discovers she's being paid less than her male peers. Her fight for fair pay takes her to the Supreme Court and Congress, while powerful forces try to shut her down. Lilly refuses to accept the status quo and has the courage to fight for what is right.

Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the Mendelman family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream come true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child, Mordechay. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shira's promised match. Everything changes when a match is proposed to Yochay-Esther's late husband-to a widow from Belgium. Yochay feels it's too early, although he realizes that sooner or later he must seriously consider getting married again. When the girls' mother finds out that Yochay may marry the widow and move to Belgium with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her heart's wish and her family duty. She will find out that the void which she must choose exists only within her heart.

Confronted with trauma, women contain, compartmentalize, distract, and ultimately carry on— lessons learned from a society of partially blind eyes. Shannon is a mother enraptured with invisible pain. She endures in chaotic calm, cracking from the inside out. Exploring the definition of motherhood and female madness, we ask: is reckoning with female pain more dangerous than playing pretend?

A young woman faces an unexpected pregnancy and must inform her father.

A newlywed Sol learns that her husband Roy is a psychotic who alternated between treating her tenderly and beating her up when she disobeys his orders.

Based upon the life of activist and trade unionist (and later MP) Sonja Davies. The film covers her life up to 1956, when, at age 33, she was elected to the Nelson Hospital Board. During this period she develops strong socialist beliefs, marries and divorces, at age 17 trains as a nurse, has a romance (and a child) with an American marine who is killed in WWII action. She battles tuberculosis and marries a former boyfriend when he returns from the war. She becomes part of a women's ill-fated campaign to save the Nelson railway line from closure and begins to be elected to political bodies.

After being brutally murdered, the spirit of a traumatized mother embarks on a desperate quest to protect the child she left behind, only to discover that her neighbors, her enemies, and even her killer are past reincarnations of her own soul.