Following the overwhelming response to previous years` events, we would be delighted to welcome you to the global forum for women film organizations @berlinale2026

BERLIN  I  13^th February 2026   I 14:30 to 16:00 CET (admission 14:00) Venue:  LANDESVERTRETUNG BADEN -WÜRTTEMBERG I Tiergartestr 15 I 10785 Berlin

“Guidelines for the Sexism-Free and Gender-Sensitive Use of AI in the Film and Media Industries”

Building on the forum’s ongoing work on AI  and sexism, this year’s event marks an important next step. We will present and discuss the newly developed guidelines for sexism-free and gender-sensitive use of AI in the film and media industries.

The forum aims to raise awareness of how AI systems can perpetuate sexist and discriminatory patterns and stereotypes in representations. It also seeks to highlight constructive and responsible approaches to working with AI in creative practice, production processes and organizational decision-making.

The guidelines bring together international expert knowledge and perspectives, and provide a practical toolkit, clear recommendations for action, and hands-on checklists to support filmmakers, stakeholders, organizations, and companies.

The event is open to the Berlinale industry audiences.

Seating is limited: please RSVP by 11^th February to this email address:

✉️ Jetzt anmelden

Programme

                     

Following the overwhelming response to previous years` events, we would be delighted to welcome you to the global forum for women film organizations @berlinale2026

BERLIN  I  13^th February 2026  I 14:30 to 16:00 CET (Admission 14:00)

VENUE: Landesvertretung Baden-Württemberg I Tiergartenstraße 15 I 10785 Berlin

“Guidelines for the Sexism-Free and Gender-Sensitive Use of AI in the Film and Media Industries”

Building on the forum’s ongoing work on AI  and sexism, this year’s event marks an important next step. We will present and discuss the newly developed guidelines for sexism-free and gender-sensitive use of AI in the film and media industries.

The forum aims to raise awareness of how AI systems can perpetuate sexist and discriminatory patterns and stereotypes in representations. It also seeks to highlight constructive and responsible approaches to working with AI in creative practice, production processes and organizational decision-making.The guidelines bring together international expert knowledge and perspectives, and provide a practical toolkit, clear recommendations for action, and hands-on checklists to support filmmakers, stakeholders, organizations, and companies.

The event is open to the Berlinale industry audiences.

Seating is limited: please RSVP by 6^th February to this email address:

✉️ Please register here

Programme

Closed Forum

“Heroines for Change”
A productive and inspirational networking opportunity that will give a quick snapshot of the variety and important work being carried out across the world. We will hear inspiring Power Speeches from fellow campaigners, who will share their knowledge, experiences and best practice with us. 

WELCOME

A short welcome by YVONNE DE ANDRES and BARBARA ROHM  and cooperation partners

INTRODUCTIONS

A quick introductory round of all participants assembled

POWER SPEECHES

BARBARA ROHM
Chairwoman, Power to Transform!
The Power of the Heroine and How to Overcome Heroic Storytelling

She studied directing at the University of Television and Film in Munich and worked as a freelance photographer. She is a founding member as well as former long-time chairwoman of the board of Pro Quote Film. Together with the German Actors Union, BFFS, she co-initiated and established the independent counseling and complaints office, „Themis complaints department against sexual harassment and violence“. 

As a speaker, Barbara Rohm lectures internationally and works as a consultant for various institutions in the film industry. She teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, amongst others. The Culture Change Hub conducts the first Intimacy Coordinator education in German-speaking countries. She also initiates and curates industry events at film festivals such as the Berlinale and Filmfest München, amongst others. 

As a board member of Power to Transform!, she advocates for women’s equality in the film industry.

JENN BROWN
Executive Director of St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival, Canada
Championing Gender Equity in Canada’s Film Industry

FRANZISKA RAUCHUT 
Co-Head of the Department of Research, Consulting, Innovation of the Federal Foundation of Gender Equality Germany
It is time for fair and equal representation and recognition of all genders: Insights into the work of the Federal Foundation of Gender Equality in Germany

Photo Credit © Monika Keiler / Bundesstiftung Gleichstellung

She has researched and taught at various universities and universities of applied sciences, most recently at Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences on gender images in the media. From 2021-2023 she was the scientific coordinator of the Digital German Women’s Archive. Since May 2023, she has been working as one of the heads of the Department of Research, Consulting, Innovation of the Federal Foundation for Gender Equality in Berlin, which role is to provide information, strengthen practice and support the development of new ideas for gender equality.

GRACI GUARANI 
Indigenous Filmmaker, Brazil
Founding the Indigenous Women Filmmaker Organisation, Katahirine in Brazil

Her CV includes directing and screenwriting 8 short films, a series of video letters „Nhemongueta Cunha Mbaraete“ (IMS/RJ), co-directing the feature film My Blood is Red (Needs Must Film), trainer on the course Indigenous Women and New Social Media – from Invisibility to Access to Rights by @onumulheresbr and TJ/MS – MS 2019; Filmmaker facilitator at the Film Workshop – Occupy the Screen: Women, Land and Movement by IMS and Museu do Índio – RJ 2019; Invited as a debater at the International Round Table of Women Film Organizations at the 70th Berlinale – Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

71 women from 32 ethnic groups, including directors such as Graci Guarani, Olinda Wanderley Yawar Tupinambá and Patrícia Ferreira Pará Yxapy, founded the Katahirine network, the first network of indigenous women in the audiovisual sector, in April 2023.

The establishment of Katahirine promises not only increased visibility for indigenous women in the film sector, but also a sustainable contribution to cultural diversity and the empowerment of indigenous communities through the transformative power of the audiovisual medium.

In her last film „XE NE’E (MEU SER)“ (2023), Graci Guarani explores the development of indigenous aesthetics and language through diverse multi-artistic styles, intellectual and political narratives and experimental works. The focus is on the wisdom of the female body as an instrument, depicting nudity in innovative and reflective ways. The works encourage intercultural dialog and represent a multifaceted exploration of the theme.

LAURA RIKARD   
Founder, Theatrical Intimacy Education and Intimacy Coordinator, USA 
KIM SHIVELY   
Associate Faculty at Theatrical Intimacy Education, Associate Professor at Elon University and Intimacy Coordinator, USA 
Staging Intimacy with a consent-based practice and within the professional boundaries

She is a leading voice in the development of the intimacy Discipline. Intimacy Coordination Credits include: Interview with A Vampire (AMC), Anne Rice Mayfair Witches (AMC), Supremes at Earl’s All You Can Eat (Searchlight Pictures), Appendage (Fever Dream Studios/Hulu), Harlem (Amazon/NBC Universal), Mother’s Instinct (Anton/FreckleFilms), Anything’s Possible (Amazon), Ramy (Hulu), among others. Intimacy Choreography credits include, Equus, West Side Story, Mama Mia, Heathers, She Kills Monstars, Stories from an Execution, Corriolanius, Indecent, and many more. She is the first invited guest to speak on Intimacy Coordination at the SXSW Film Festival (2023).  She contributed to the first book on intimacy Staging Sex; Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Theatrical Intimacy, she co-founded The Journal of Consent Based Performance, she has published numerous articles on consent and intimacy, and has been interviewed on many podcasts. She recently contributed to the book Stanislavski and Intimacy with Routledge publishing. Her upcoming book is Consent in the Acting Classroom. She has recently received the Kennedy Center Medallion for her contributions to Intimacy Direction/Choreography, the Excellence in Teaching and Advising Award for the Colleges of of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities at USC Upstate, and the the USC Upstate Glasswing Butterfly award for created the TIE Educator Advocate Program. She has taught theatre at the University of Virginia, Stephen F. Austin State University, Brown University, and the University of Miami. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, the National Alliance of Acting Teachers, the SAFD, ATME, ATHE, and VASTA. She is based in the home of the Cherokee Nation, Asheville, North Carolina and is a mom of twins. insta@laurarikardprofessoric 

A member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, Kim has enjoyed a professional career in Theatre, Television, Commercials, Hosting, and Voice-over. 

In addition to her career as an Intimacy Coordinator (film/tv) and Choreographer (theatre), Shively has worked with educational institutions, professional organizations, and within the entertainment industry in the US and Europe, training people in the best practices of boundaries and consent for creative spaces when working with minors.

Shively’s research has been published in top tier publications. Her chapter on working with minors will be featured in a new volume on Intimacy Coordination published in Spring of 2024. 

ELIZABETH MCINTYRE    
Co-Director, ScreenCraft Works, UK
EMMA BUTT     
ScreenCraft Works Advisory Group / Dubbing Mixer & Sound Editor, UK
Representation in Tech

With a career across conference, exhibition, commissioning and documentary filmmaking, Elizabeth’s work includes curation for OKRE, a Wellcome Trust-supported story ideas platform, and consultancy for ProQuote Film Berlin (UK and Irish speakers). Previous positions include Director of Sheffield Doc/Fest, Head of Masterschool Documentary Campus and Head of Production & Development (UK Factual) for Discovery Networks International, where she commissioned single films and series for local and global markets, including You Have Been Warned, The Great White Silence and Inside the Gangsters’ Code. Documentary credits include The Lost Children of Berlin for Steven Spielberg, Dangerous Love (BBC), No Place Like Home (BBC) and Five Steps to Tyranny (BBC). 

Advisory roles include UK Muslim Film and, formerly BAFTA TV/Learning, Inclusion & Talent committees and WFTV trustee. She contributes to mentoring and masterclass programmes such as Wonder Women and ScreenSkills.  Elizabeth is based in Germany and the UK. 

She is a current member of the BAFTA TV Committee and an Advisory member for Screen Craft Works.
In her spare time she is a mentor, helping to support the next generation of filmmakers and creative talent. She is an advocate for diversity in Film and TV, and completed a report on „Diversity in Post Production Sound“ through The Sir Lenny Henry Center for Media Diversity“ which highlighted the lack of diversity and offered solutions as to how this can be changed and improved. She has worked as a consultant and helped design Channel 4’s, 4PP (4 Post Production) programme which is a development programme designed to accelerate the careers of mid-senior talent from underrepresented backgrounds working in Post Production roles. She has also worked as a consultant with Audible UK on their “Off Mic” workshops which aim to improve diversity and inclusion across craft and technical teams on audiobooks and is a recent winner of the Women in Film and TV award for “Achievement of the year”.

MELISSA SILVERSTEIN      
Founder of Women and Hollywood and Artistic Director of Athena Film Festival
The Creative Doula Project

MELANIE IREDALE     
Director, Reclaim The Frame / Birds’ Eye View, UK
Reclaiming The Frame For Filmmakers Of All Marginalised Genders

Prior to this, Melanie was Deputy Director at Sheffield DocFest 2014-2021, overseeing the development of its arts/interactive programme and co-programmer of its Rhyme & Rhythm strand, and served as Director of Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2009-2014, commissioning moving image art and performances that went on to win awards at International Film Festival Rotterdam and beyond. 

Melanie has served on several juries internationally, including Nordisk Panorama and the Teddy Awards at Berlinale, and exec produced Rebel Dykes, which brought the queer, ally, and activist communities together at 50+ festivals around the world.

DEBORAH WILLIAMS       
Executive Director, FWD-Doc
Negotiation of Representation

With over 30 years’ experience working above and below the line in television, film and theatre, as well as policy development across the wider creative and cultural industries. She is the architect and designer of the BFI Diversity standards that were adopted by The Oscars and BAFTA in 2020. 

As well as sitting on panels and steering groups for many organisations, Deborah is known in her own right as an artist provocateur having won awards and nominations nationally and internationally. Her work in theatre is acknowledged as a catalyst for challenge and change in perceptions of disability and difference.  

In 2019 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award from Inclusive Companies for her body of work in the area of diversity and culture. She is a Disabled Powerlister 2018, 2019 & 2022. In June 2022 Deborah was awarded an OBE in the Queens Platinum Jubilee Birthday honours, for services to diversity in arts and creative industries.

CRISTINA ANDREU       
Asociación de mujeres cineastas y medios audiovisuales (CIMA), Spain
Post-Heroic Images in Cinema

Cristina wrote the book “A woman under the influence” about Isabel Coixet and coordinated the “Guide to audiovisual creation: from the Idea to the Screen” for the AECID. In addition, she is a teacher at numerous national and international film and audiovisual professional centres and schools.

Since 2018, she has been president of CIMA, the association of women filmmakers and audiovisual media. As president, during these years, she has promoted new lines of action such as the recovery of memory and the work of women filmmakers in Spain, collaborating closely with universities and the Spanish Film Archive, recovering, restoring, and disseminating figures such as Nadia Werba and Adela Medrano. In addition, Cristina has promoted the production of specific reports about racialized and/or migrant women in the Spanish audiovisual industry. Likewise, CIMA has achieved a series of achievements to achieve effective gender equality in the industry in the legislative field, such as the equality measures incorporated in the draft Law on Cinema and Audiovisual Culture and the General Law of Audiovisual Communication.

SABRINA FARJI        
Film Director / Producer / Vice-President of Argentina Filmacademie
Invisibility is Not a Superpower

She is the founder of Zoelle Producciones (2003), specializing in gender-aware audio-visual content and the winner of the 8M 2023 Acquisition Award for the video art „Some Women.“ Co-creator of the Audiovisual Equality Observatory OIA, focusing on women’s representation on and off-camera.

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WELCOME ADDRESS 17:00

GREETINGS 17:05

GREETINGS 17:10

GREETINGS 17:15

KEYNOTE 17:20

JOEY SOLOWAY (they/them) is best known for creating, producing, directing, and writing the acclaimed Amazon original television series TRANSPARENT (2014-2019), for which they were nominated for five Emmy Awards (winning two) and three Golden Globes (winning one). Overall, the show received twenty-four Emmy nominations and eight Emmy awards during its run. Transparent made history as the first streaming series to win a major award as Best Series.

Other awards include Best Director at Sundance Film Festival in 2014 for their first feature, AFTERNOON DELIGHT as well as Peabody, Bafta and SAG awards and nominations for both TRANSPARENT and the iconic feminist cult series I LOVE DICK. Soloway is currently co-writing A TRANSPARENT MUSICAL with their sibling Faith Soloway and MJ Kaufman, which is set to open on Broadway in Fall of 2024. 

Soloway is also currently partnering with Maudlyne Ihajerika, Chelsea Woods and Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw on THE SOUTH COMMONS EXPERIMENT, a documentary feature about growing up in a racial utopia in Chicago’s South loop. Soloway has published two memoirs: TINY LADIES IN SHINY PANTS (Simon & Schuster, 2006),and SHE WANTS IT: DESIRE, POWER, AND TOPPLING THE PATRIACHY (Crown, 2018), which was praised by critics and readers alike and was chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Soloway is a cofounder of 5050by2020, an artist empowerment network and strategic initiative of Timeʼs Up. They launched the Disruptors Fellowship, which is awarded to ten artists of colour who also identify as trans and/or non-binary, disabled, undocumented and/or formerly undocumented. Soloway also created THE GODYSSEY, a docu-comedy travelling the globe to discover the story of Amtlai, the mysterious mother of Abraham. Soloway has two sons and splits their time between Los Angeles and Provincetown, MA.

PANEL DISCUSSION 17:50

„POST-HEROIC STORYTELLING: MOVING BEYOND THE MALE GAZE AND REIMAGINING THE FEMALE GAZE“

Anna’s first feature documentary SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD premiered at Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary Competition program, winning the Directing Award. The film celebrated its European premiere at CPH:DOX. Anna’s next short fiction is WEIGHT OF LIGHT that depicts the life of female rag pickers in Delhi. Anna is singer in the electronic-folk trio EETER that was nominated in the Best Film Music category at the Estonian Film and TV Awards 2018. Anna is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Department of Drama of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

The film screened at over 40 international film festivals including the Cannes Short Film Corner and is now screening on Showmax, the leading African Streamer. She’s also a 2022 NEFTI short film competition winner and is currently developing her first feature film, Some Mothers. She’s currently serving as a board member for SWIFT, a non-profit organisation committed to championing empowerment and access to equal opportunities for women in a previously male-dominated industry, by advocating for change from the historical imbalances and a legacy that discriminated against women in South Africa.

She’s a recipient of the Hnatyshyn Indigenous award of excellence, a Chalmers Arts Fellowship and was selected to the 2020 Netflix Banff Diversity of voices initiative. She is shooting her next feature film, BLOOD LINES, later this year and is in development on a new comedy series, REZ IN THE CITY. Gail always tells stories with strong female Indigenous leads. 

Gail is one of Variety’s Top Ten Canadians to watch in 2023. 

At Variety, she spearheaded the outlet’s international news coverage, and reported from all the major international film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Toronto. Prior to Variety, she was Editor of Television Business International, and before that, International Editor at Broadcast magazine. She got her start at the Toronto-based Realscreen magazine, specializing in non-fiction and documentary. She has won numerous Los Angeles Press Club awards for her reporting, as well as Folio’s Top Women in Media award. She is a regular commentator on the BBC and Sky News and is also a voting member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Participation by personal invitation only. If you are especially interested, please contact us at news@power-to-transform.org.

The public event will be recorded and can be seen on our YouTube channel afterwards.

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ADMISSION 9:15 AM

PUBLIC EVENT (10.00-11.30 AM)

OPENING 10:00 AM

ISABELLE POUPART
Chargée d’affaires a.i. Canada to Germany

GREETINGS

LISA PAUS
Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth

MARIETTE RISSENBEEK
Executive director of the Berlin International Filmfestival

THE IMPORTANCE OF FEMALE VOICES DURING CRISIS AND IN RESTRICTIVE SYSTEMS

BARBARA ROHM
Chairwoman Power to Transform!

PANEL 10:30 AM

AFGHANISTAN, IRAN AND UKRAINE: FEMALE FILMMAKING AND PERSPECTIVES IN CRISIS ZONES

CHRISTINA TYNKEVYCH
filmmaker & director, Ukraine

MARYNA ER GORBACH
film director, screenwriter & producer, Ukraine

PUNE PARSAFAR
filmmaker, researcher & educator, Iran

ROKHSAREH GHAEMMAGHAMI
documentary filmmaker & producer, Iran

SHAHRBANOO SADAT
filmmaker, Afghanistan

moderated by KARIN HELMSTAEDT
journalist & moderator Deutsche Welle, Canada

MEET AND GREET 11:30 AM

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