A deeply committed festival where every perspective matters: Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival
In a demonstration of the festival’s commitment to high creative standards and political engagement, the Turkish festival featured a retrospective on the films of Lúcia Murat. The Brazilian filmmaker’s works stand out in her hybrid blend of fiction and documentary techniques, responsive approach to living through Brazil’s dictatorship, and recentring the narratives of women in militant movements.
For its 29th edition, the Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival celebrated the diversity of genres, with the title “Each Has a Different Color”—a title that is all the more meaningful in these times fueled by toxic and deadly identity-based passions. Reaffirming—more than ever—that the ontological multiculturalism of our societies is an ethical, political, and artistic commitment. “Each Has a Different Color” is a simple, almost self-evident title, yet one that resonates with particular force. Here, diversity is not a slogan; it is a necessity, a living reality. Consequently, the question may arise, if it must: what is a film festival featuring films directed, written, and very often produced by women? The answer lies not in a definition, but in a story.
An Activist and Film-Loving Collective
It all began in 1998, in Ankara, in the wake of the Turkish feminist movement of the 1990s. Flying Broom was born out of a collective effort, led by activist Halime Güner and a handful of women convinced that cinema could be a tool for social change. At the time, the industry was largely dominated by male-centered narratives, often rife with stereotypes. The festival thus chose to flip the perspective: to make cinema a space where women tell stories, ask questions, and challenge the status quo.
The symbol of the eponymous flying broom is not insignificant. It evokes the figure of the witch—long marginalized and demonized—to reclaim her as an icon of power, freedom, and resistance. This gesture alone speaks volumes about the festival’s ambition. But Flying Broom is not just an activist project. It is also a venue of high artistic standards and recognized internationally, notably as the first women’s film festival to award the FIPRESCI Prize. This dual identity—political and cinephile—is what makes it so unique.
Over the years, its programming has evolved into a space for the exchange of perspectives. It does not limit itself to showing films directed by women: it examines their place in the history of cinema while exploring the divisions of the contemporary world. From its very first editions, the festival has featured a program organized around several thematic sections. One of the most iconic, “Each Has a Different Color,” brings together films by female directors from diverse geographical backgrounds to reflect the diversity of women’s experiences. This year featured no fewer than 47 films, with programs of feature and short films from various countries. It is also a festival where the collective spirit is paramount, where sharing and respect for each and every person take precedence—a festival where ego has no place.
Everyone is treated with respect; just like the films, the concept of competition doesn’t really apply here—except perhaps for the FIPRESCI jury (alongside my dear colleagues Omnia Adel from Egypt and Ece Vitrinel from Turkey). Even then, the excellence of the lineup made the task even more difficult, because how can you single out one film when the entire lineup is so outstanding? I have rarely seen or worked with a team as united, egalitarian, and generous—one with such a deep love of cinema—including, in particular, its artistic director Alin Taşçıyan, general director Ayşe Ürün Güner, coordinator Dalım İlteriş Mayadağlı, as well as Başak Tekin and her entire team. That, too, is what defines a women’s and feminist festival: full and complete equality, where sharing and passing on knowledge matter.
A Commemorative and Committed Edition
For this 29th edition, a very clear artistic and political theme emerged: that of memory, justice, and resistance, notably celebrating the work of Brazilian filmmaker Lúcia Murat, who was in attendance. A leading figure in militant cinema who herself survived the military dictatorship, she received the Bilge Olgaç Lifetime Achievement Award, accompanied by an essential retrospective of her films. Organized with the support of the Brazilian Embassy, this tribute began on June 2 with the presentation of the award.
Lúcia Murat: A Life Shaped by the Dictatorship
As a young student and journalist, she joined the MR-8 in 1968, a guerrilla group fighting against the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985). In 1971, Lúcia Murat was 23 years old when she was arrested and tortured during Brazil’s military dictatorship, the period known as the “Years of Lead.” Her imprisonment, which lasted nearly four years, left a deep mark on her life and her filmography. She survived to transform this personal and collective trauma into raw, reflective, and courageous cinematic material. Murat founded her production company in the early 1980s before establishing herself as one of the leading figures in Brazilian cinema. Over more than forty years of filmmaking, she has directed nearly twenty feature films, building a body of work of remarkable coherence in which the personal constantly dialogues with collective history.
Questioning History and Collective Memories
Far from any sensationalism, Lúcia Murat’s cinema is distinguished by a constant mise en abyme of history. Her work rejects passive contemplation or melodrama in favor of a rigorous confrontation, a trait inherited from her training as a journalist. This approach is built on three fundamental pillars: a head-on battle against the collective amnesia that followed the amnesty granted to the Brazilian dictatorship, a constant blurring of the lines between reality and fiction through hybrid techniques, and the rehabilitation of women in the resistance who are all too often overshadowed by male-centered accounts of the guerrilla movement.
Murat’s filmmaking has evolved over the decades to respond to the political urgencies of her time. During the 1980s and 1990s, her aesthetic was based on a fusion of documentary and theater, prioritizing raw, unfiltered speech directed at the camera to break the silence and give voice to women who were victims of state violence. At the turn of the 2000s, she adopted more conventional chronological narratives to decode the present, seeking to understand how the structures of the dictatorship shaped today’s crime and inequalities. Finally, the recent period from the 2010s to the 2020s marks a shift toward intimate drama and stories of legacy. It is no longer just about bearing witness but also about examining the legacy of activism in the face of aging and standing in the way of the resurgence of fascism.
Dialogue with the Current Generation
The festival screened three of these films, and the screenings were followed by Q&A sessions between Murat and the audience. The audience was thus able to discover her debut film Que Bom Te Ver Viva (1989), A Memória Que Me Contam (2012, Memories They Told Me), and her latest film, Hora do Recreio (2025, Playtime). A masterclass was also held, during which she discussed her personal and professional journeys, which are closely intertwined. The creative process—from writing a screenplay to producing a film, through filming and distribution—was explored and illustrated with numerous clips from her extensive filmography. The audience was very engaged, with Turkish youth particularly eager to learn about the journey of this woman who remains steadfast, committed, and humanistic and who listens and speaks with great generosity.
Her first feature-length film, which can be translated literally as “How Nice to See You Alive,” left its mark on post-dictatorship cinema. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Que Bom Te Ver Viva challenges the traditional documentary form by creating a cinematic language in which the blending of narratives is the driving force behind this unique film. Indeed, Murat interweaves interviews with torture survivors with fictional monologues delivered by Brazilian actress Irene Ravache. Beyond the horrors of imprisonment, the film explores psychological trauma and the challenge of learning to live again after enduring hell. This seminal masterpiece was born from the filmmaker’s personal experience as a former guerrilla fighter who was tortured under the dictatorship.
Ravache embodies the inner turmoil, irony, anger, and delirium that the classic documentary format could not capture. The central question is not so much, “how did the torture take place?” but rather, “how does one live after going through hell?” Murat explores the guilt of having survived, the perspective of a society that prefers silence (amnesty), and the impossible return to a “normal” life or happiness. It is a film of devastating therapeutic and political power that resonates in our time.
The second film presented, A Memória que me Contam, could be seen as a generational reckoning. Much more intimate, this autofiction serves as a mirror of the filmmaker’s own life. A group of old friends, who are former revolutionaries, reunites around the hospital bed of a former comrade-in-arms who is dying. The film contrasts their past utopias with the reality of modern Brazil and poses a painful question: what have we done with our struggles? It also highlights the vast gulf between them and the new generation, for whom these sacrifices are nothing more than lines in history textbooks.
Finally, the last film presented and most recent, Hora do Recreio, blurs the lines between documentary and fiction to paint a portrait of Brazilian youth grappling with the social and political divisions of their time. Winner of the Youth Jury Prize in the Generation 14plus section at the 2025 Berlinale, the film attests to the undiminished vitality of a filmmaker who, film after film, pursues a deeply humanistic exploration of the relationships between history, society, and emancipation.
A Meaningful Tribute
What stands out across Murat’s entire body of work is her direct, unadorned style of filming—no spectacle, no pathos. There is an almost austere rigor, inherited from journalism, yet imbued with profound humanity. Faces, silences, and vulnerabilities—everything that eludes official narratives—take center stage. It is also a cinema of confrontation. While some of her fiction films from the 2000s adopt more conventional structures, it is her ability to capture faces, silences, and intangible psychological traumas that makes her one of the most valuable and principled voices in Latin American cinema.
Honoring Lúcia Murat at a festival like Flying Broom is no coincidence; it’s only natural. Her films remind us, with rare clarity, that filmmaking can be an act of resistance. For some women, telling their stories is already a way to survive—and to fight.
Nadia Meflah
Edited by Olivia Popp
©FIPRESCI2026