Girls’ Stories

Jagoda and Zuzia giggle in the opening scenes in the way that only 11-year-old girls can. Together they are the center of their own changing world. On the face of it, not much happens in the lives of these Polish best friends, but big changes are on the way. The end of primary school is in sight, and the girls are impatiently awaiting first love, budding breasts and first periods.

Period: A State of Purity

Tibetan Buddhist nuns from the Thupten Choling monastery in the Himalayan foothills discuss their mentruation practices.

Period: The End of Menstruation

As millions of women and girls take shots and pills to stop their periods, the meaning of menstruation changes. Current marketing of hormonal birth control (Depo-Provera, Seasonale, Seasonique, Lybrel, Anya) attracts customers by promising freedom from monthly periods. For many consumers, menstrual suppression eliminates painful monthly flow, giving them more control in their lives. For others, menstrual suppression represents a frightening shift in thinking about the human body and another dangerous experiment on woman’s health. Period: The End of Menstruation? interrogates the cultural and medical side effects of suppression before 'the curse' disappears.

Bloodshed

Tilly, Miah and Safa are three young women who endure debilitating period pain. Following an adolescence with little menstrual education, support or relief, they navigate the physical and emotional toll of intensely painful periods while trying to maintain a normal life.

Linda's Film on Menstruation

This is an educational short released by the Los Angeles Public Library explaining what to expect when you get your first period.

Learning to Live

A basic sex education film designed for young engaged couples.

Growing Girls

After several farmyard analogies featuring chicks and calves, the well-spoken narrator and director of the film, Winifred Holmes, considers the subject of girls and how they reach adulthood and readiness for the 'important job of motherhood.

Empty Womb

The manifesto of a body that bleeds by nature, the reconnection with the ancestors and the self-portrayed voice of a woman who seeks to break with the oppression that has forced us to experience menstruation with fear, shame and rejection.

Menarca

Even at the age when changes in the body are expected, menstruation is still taboo for teenagers in Brazil. Mixing fiction and documentary, Menarca offers the space for a group of teenagers to talk about their cycles and how they affect menstruating bodies.

Towelhead

A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.

The Day I Hate to Go to School

Eun-jung, who is poor enough to buy a sanitary pad, leaves school without her father's knowledge and sneaks into her house. And they spend the day in their own way, familiarly.

La regla de Gala

Gala is preparing for the firefighter exam when she gets her period accompanied by severe menstrual pain. Together with her father Alfonso, they must figure out how to manage the situation.

Ginger Snaps

The story of two outcast sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, in the mindless suburban town of Bailey Downs. On the night of Ginger's first period, she is savagely attacked by a wild creature. Ginger's wounds miraculously heal but something is not quite right. Now Brigitte must save her sister and save herself.

Anatomy of Hell

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

A Tale of Two Sisters

Two sisters return home after a stay in a mental institution, only to face disturbing events and a strained relationship with their stepmother. As eerie occurrences unfold, dark family secrets begin to surface, blurring the line between reality and nightmare.

Shedding

In a strange morning, Gabi had the feeling of being absorbed by something unusual.

SACRA

I am Leo

Wide meadows, romping in the woods and building cabins. Leo (12) spends the autumn holidays with big sister Noémie and cousin Emil on Grandma Marlies' farm. However when Leo is surprised by what Grandma Marlies calls big news, Leo faces an identity crisis. "I am Leo" immerses itself into the emotional world of a child who is on the way to discover their gender identity. A film about expectations that overwhelm, about thoughts that restrict and about the courage to find yourself.

First Blood

A teenage girl goes through a bizarre transformation after she gets her first period.

In the Blood

A violent sneeze in church leaves a teenage girl confined to a claustrophobic bathroom stall, which grows more bloody and nightmarish by the minute, as she struggles to get a tampon.