Sunday, March 29, 2026 | 4:00 pm-5:30 pm | Cinema Salon
This event brings together three speakers whose creative work engages with struggles for justice and visibility in Rojava and Afghanistan, reflecting on how artistic and cultural practices can function as tools of resistance, documentation, and collective memory.
Through personal experiences and artistic perspectives, the speakers will discuss how women navigate through authoritarian structures, create spaces for expression, and contribute to ongoing movements for social and political change.
Helin Çelik is a Kurdish interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in Vienna. In her works, she investigates different geographies of political struggle and reconstructs existing narratives by interweaving narrative and nonfiction instruments. She strives to unpack the relationship between political and cinematographic memory by blending personal history and using new visual grammars and intends to diversify the possibilities of media-making for imagining another future.
Raihana Akbari is an artist and activist from Herat, Afghanistan. She studied Fine Arts at the Kamaluddin Behzad Institute, where she later taught art for seven years. Alongside her artistic practice, she has been actively involved in initiatives supporting women and youth through education, cultural programs, and civic engagement, including founding an organization dedicated to empowering women in her community. Following the Taliban’s return to power, she relocated to Vienna, where she is currently studying Fine Arts at the University of Applied Arts and continues her work on projects addressing women’s rights, artistic expression, and social justice.
Frauen*Solidarität Wien: Making the positions of global and international women’s movements audible and visible is the goal of Frauen*solidarität. The feminist development policy organization was founded in 1982. It provides information and educational work on women* and gender relations worldwide and engages in dialogue with women’s and LGBTQ movements from the Global South.
In a world where patriarchy increasingly dominates women’s bodies, nature, and the rights of minorities, feminine strategies, whether practiced by women or men, along with femine solidarity and feminine resistance, are a daily necessity.
The Panel will be open to the public, bring your ideas and curiosity.
West Asian Film Festival: Special Program
All talks, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions will be held in English.
The conversations expand on themes explored in the films screened each day.
Our other WAFF Special Program is on Saturday, March 28, 2026: