16 Days 16 Films is an international initiative using film and storytelling to amplify female filmmakers and raise awareness of gender-based violence. Founded in 2018 by Johanna von Fischer and Ginta Gelvan, the UK-based 16 Days 16 Films has worked over the past eight years on a national and international scale, bringing together filmmakers, activists, experts and audiences into the same crucial conversation.
Inspired by the UN Women campaign, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, each year 16 Days 16 Films run a competition for female filmmakers. 16 films are selected from hundreds of submissions for each day of the campaign: utilising storytelling to open up conversations around gender-based violence, equality, and the cultural attitudes that underpin them.
The initiative has grown internationally since its inception, working alongside organisations including the Geena Davis Institute, the United Nations, and UN Women.
Investment from the Caring Masculinity Fund (CMF) strengthened the core delivery of 16 Days 16 Films, supporting the continued success, maintenance, and running of the programme.
“For a small independent initiative like ours, core funding is transformative. It allows us to keep doing the work: finding powerful stories, giving filmmakers a platform and using film to open conversations about gender-based violence and the cultural change needed to prevent it,” explain Johanna and Ginta.
And this type of funding is hard to come by. Most donors prefer to finance specific, short-term projects rather than the core operations of an organisation.
Core funding facilitated by the CMF supported the necessary infrastructure behind 16 Days and 16 Film’s visible work. 16 Days 16 Films is a small, independent initiative, and delivering an international programme every year requires considerable work and resources. The CMF contributed directly to the initiative’s ability to successfully deliver their core programme, ensuring stories continued to reach an international audience.
“Without that foundation, the impact simply cannot happen,” they explain. “The CMF gave us valuable support to continue delivering a proven programme while developing the conversations around it. It also provided something equally important: validation.”
Importantly, the CMF also reinforced 16 Days 16 Film’s ethos and belief that storytelling has an important role to play in changing attitudes around gender and violence, understood as an essential part of gender-based violence prevention for the initiative.
“Film can make an issue personal and emotional in a way that statistics alone cannot. It can create empathy, challenge assumptions and provide an entry point into conversations that might otherwise be difficult to have,” explain Johanna and Ginta.
The fund has also enabled the initiative to further broaden their conversations: 16 Days 16 Films are increasingly exploring how men can become allies in the fight for gender equality.
“One of the important evolutions of 16 Days 16 Films has been recognising that ending gender-based violence cannot be a conversation involving women alone,” explain the founders. “We want our films and discussions to engage men and boys too, encouraging empathy, allyship and more positive, caring ideas of masculinity.”
And, for 16 Days 16 Films, the impact of their work, and the support of the CMF, is not only measured in numbers.
For them, impact is a filmmaker feeling that her story has been seen and heard, an audience encountering a perspective they may never have considered before, or a conversation continuing long after a film has ended.
“Those moments are where cultural change begins,” explain Johanna and Ginta. “The impact of the funding is ultimately in the stories we are able to keep telling.”
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