15th edition of Vox Feminae Festival is being held in Zagreb, from May 7th until June 17th. Here’s what to see and hear about women on women in this years’ edition.

Full list of program can be seen at www.voxfeminae.net/festival
WOW EXHIBTIONS AT VOX FEMINAE 2021 FESTIVAL
Martina Šalov, photo exhibtion ‘Hey boy’
May 7th @ Šesnaestica (Ozaljska 16, Zagreb)
All my life I wear pants and short hair. All my life I struggle with curious looks, the assumption that I am a man or the question: “Are you a man or a woman?”. Almost every day there are curious looks, but also insults and shouts. Most often, because of my appearance, they throw me out of women’s toilets, or come out of them to check if they have entered the right one. Shouts “what are you, a lesbian?”. Even to the elbows in the head. – says photographer Martina Šalov.
Over time, she started sharing her butch life on social media. After each post, girls with similar situations contacted her. The ‘Hey, Boy’ project came about spontaneously, one summer afternoon. The moments from butch life turned into the idea that all these beautiful women might need to get a chance to tell their story. How hard or fun it was. ‘Hey, boy’ was created to try to show through photography and real stories of these women all the beauty of diversity and femininity. Šalov would like to, with all these wonderful women, fight discrimination and stereotypes.

Martina Šalov is a photographer above all, and a videographer in her free time and out of curiosity. She lives and works in Rijeka. The project ‘Hey, boy’ has so far been presented in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Niš (Serbia). It is constantly evolving through the Facebook page. ‘Hey, boy’ can be visited at community hub Šesnaestica, up until mid-June.
Rina Barbarić, installation ‘Room for Confrontation’
May 13th @ Showroom (Teslina 12, Zagreb)
Exhibition ‘Room for Confrontation’ consists of two parts. The first part was created by artist Rina Barbarić in collaboration with participants of the workshop ‘Pussssy talk’ (Norma Trkovnik, Karla Lebhft, Dunja Dejanović, Anđela Rostuhar) where, through socializing and creating, they explored the best moments they have experienced together. Result is their own female experience written on reflective surfaces and exhibited in the gallery.
The second part of the exhibition is a continuation of the work ‘Room to Lose Innocence’, and shows a bed turned into a boxing ring. The bed, like the boards on which they wrote their conclusions, is made of mirrors because it represents the inner female fight for peace withing that will result in freedom of sexual expression.
Rina Barbarić is a long time collaborator of Vox Feminae Festival. In 2017, she created a visual identity for the 11th Vox Feminae Festival, as part of which she presented his first solo exhibition in Zagreb, ‘Mom was right!’. In September 2019, she presents her solo exhibition ‘Room to Lose Innocence’ as part of the Mapping the Unseen festival, with which she also traveled to Klagenfurt in March 2020. In 2020, she attended and completed the educational program of the Center for Women’s Studies. She is currently a freelancer in Zagreb and working on new ideas and projects in the field of visual arts.
After the opening, exhibition ‘Room for Confrontation’ can be seen from 5 to 8 PM on weekdays OR 10 AM to 1 PM on weekends, up until May 19th.
WOW TALKS AT VOX FEMINAE 2021 FESTIVAL
What kind of LGB activism is the aim of TERF activism?
May 17h @ Šesnaestica (Ozaljska 16, Zagreb) + online streaming
Transphobia in feminist spaces has a history as long as the merging and solidarity of trans_feminist aspirations and actions. This tension contains the lack of elaboration of the fundamental aspects of feminist_LGBTIQ + organizations, the uncertainty of theoretical positions and the lack of reflection on what is being done, for whom, how and why it is being done.
Returning to these ambiguities and debates that have not been opened consistently or that have been partially opened is a painful and arduous process, but represents a moment of learning and opportunities to transform and sharpen tools, strategies and views on economic and related social relations with which gender operates. Conservative anti-feminist currents and anti-LGBTIQ + currents are also conservative tendencies within the feminism of the LGBTIQ + movement that strive for “normalization”, “acceptance”, “fitting”, participating in eradicating the most vulnerable experiences and erasing the emancipatory history of the movement. Already in the 1970s, with the beginning of organized repression of trans experiences from feminism, the destructive consequences of TERF ideology came to the fore in denying access to health care and other existentially necessary resources to trans people, and similar rhetoric continues today, gaining momentum in Serbia and Croatia.
As an attempt to return to the neuralgic places of feminist theory and search for possible ways to unravel them, this discussion will analyze TERF ideology and show what feminist_LGB policy it produces and what are the dangers of its further strengthening and affirmation.
Participants include: Espi Tomičić, openly trans playwright and member of feminist collective fAKTIV; Sonja Sajzor, Serbian openly trans artist and activist; Mia and Lina Gonan who explore anti-capitalist theory and practices that adress sexism, transphobia and homophobia; and Nina Čolović who explores queer-feminist theories and practices oriented towards economic and social justice.
Revolutionary idealist – urban walk dedicated to Marija Jurić Zagorka
Lecturer: Neda Novosel
May 29th @ Gundulićeva 12, Zagreb (starting point)
Marija Jurić Zagorka was Croatia’s first professional journalist, better known among the audience as a writer. She was also a playwright, social and political worker, humanitarian and philanthropist, researcher, feminist, and activist. With her talent and constant work, Zagorka followed the ideals of constant social and political engagement, incorruptibility, perseverance, fighting for a just and free society in which women and men develop their abilities equally as active citizens. Apart from being a revolutionary, she left such heroines to us in her novels, even though her literary work was underestimated at the time.
At this event, we will walk a well-designed route through six well-known and lesser-known locations in Zagreb; and go through the interesting facts of Zagorka’s life and work that place her in the circle of fierce women.
Neda Novosel (Zabok, 1990) completed her parallel studies in sociology and croatology at the University of Zagreb in 2015. A year later, she enrolled and completed the educational program of the Center for Women’s Studies. Marija Jurić Zagorka, her life and work, are a topic she has been dealing with continuously since her high school days. She is an independent researcher and associate of the Marija Jurić Zagorka Memorial Apartment. She participates in the management of the Memorial Room, in the series of lectures on Marija Jurić Zagorka and in literary and scientific gatherings as part of the Day of Marija Jurić Zagorka.
In the Footsteps of Fierce Women
June 11th @ Booksa (Martićeva 14d, Zagreb) – starting point

The patriarchal view of history excludes women, except in rare cases when they themselves have been part of dominant power structures. Artists, pedagogues, doctors, activists, writers and scientists were not simply forgotten, but most often did not even have the opportunity to be remembered because there was no place for them in the official historical narrative.
As the sociologist and philosopher Jasenka Kodrnja wrote, “space and time are human constructions that are not gender neutral.” On the contrary, gender inequality is clearly articulated in public space – from the terminology of streets and squares to monumental sculpture.
Therefore, this project maps women’s achievements and inscribe them in public space in order to get a more equal and complete picture of our reality. ‘In the Footsteps of Fierce Women’ is a continuation of Common Zone’s many years of work to increase visibility and promote the work of interesting and inspiring women, and we hope there will be more and more of those paths.
After the presentation, we will embark on urban tour through the center of Zagreb.
Workshop and lecture about Edita Schubert
June 17th @ Šesnaestica (Ozaljska 16, Zagreb)
On the anniversary of the birth of Edita Schubert, we are closing the fifteenth VFF with a lecture dedicated to this fierce woman, which will be prepared by Leonida Kovač.
Upon the lecture, artist Nikolina Manojlović Vračar will hold a workshop dedicated to the memory of this great Croatian artist. By quoting, redefining and putting in a new context Edita’s black and white sketch from 1985, participants will go through all the stages of making a ceramic mosaic. From the technique of enlarging the sketch on the wall, through chopping and cutting tiles, making glue, planning and arranging the relationship of colors and surfaces, gluing mosaics to the final grouting and cleaning of the entire surface of the mosaic.
Nikolina Manojlović Vračar was born in 1976 in Zagreb, where she graduated in painting in 2001 at the teaching department of the Academy of Fine Arts. She is a member of HDLU and HZSU and HDKDM. She gained the status of an independent multimedia artist by exhibiting independently and participating in group exhibitions, dealing with land art, urban interventions and performances.
Leonida Kovač is an art historian and theorist, curator, and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb. Since the mid-1980s, he has been intensively engaged in the feminist deconstruction of heteronormative discourses, with a focus on the regimes of representation, ie structural violence in the discourse of art and visual culture. She conceived and realized about thirty author’s exhibitions.
WOW WORKSHOPS AT VOX FEMINAE 2021 FESTIVAL
Women with video-cameras: animation workshop
May 8th – May 29th @ Šesnaestica (Ozaljska 16, Zagreb)
A free four-day workshop on making a short animated film will be held for women over the age of 18, regardless of previous knowledge or experience of making an animated film. Through the workshop, eight participants will acquire the knowledge necessary for the realization of an animated film through the introduction of basic terminology, techniques, production program and post-production of image (editing) and sound. They will apply the acquired knowledge through the stages of conceiving, planning and producing their part of the educational film, taking different roles in the creative process, from photography, directing to animation. The animation process includes: screenwriting, storyboarding, character making, scenography, movement animation and post-production (sound recording, music and editing).
Katrin Novaković graduated from the Academy of Arts in Split in 2012 with a degree in Film and Video. In 2015, he completed an internship at the Trikk17 animation studio in Hamburg, Germany. She holds a master’s degree in Animated Film and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Her award-winning student films are screened at festivals around the world. In 2020, she is in the selection of competition films and a member of the expert jury at several animated film festivals. She has attended several animation workshops and has recently led puppet and stop animation workshops.
Matea Kovač is an animator and illustrator. She completed her graduate studies at the Department of Animated Film and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. During and after her studies, she participated in several workshops dedicated to animated film. As a production associate, she has contributed to the realization of numerous projects and films of various types and genres through animation. Her films have been screened and awarded at international festivals. In 2020, as a film selector and member of the jury, she participated in the International Day of Animated Film organized by ASIFA.
Queer Feminist Wiki Squad HR
May 9th Online

The event is designed as a discussion on Wikimedia and Gender Gap, where the practices of collectives and projects ART + Feminism, Le SansPagEs, Women in Red will be presented, followed by a practical part for transferring technical and methodological knowledge to interested audiences. editing the Croatian Wikipedia in order to reduce the gender gap.
Namely, apart from the content of Wikipedia itself, which is not gender balanced, there is an almost identical imbalance if you look at the data on the editors of Wikipedia.
The practical part will facilitate the opening of personal accounts on Wikipedia to interested persons, and we will go through the basics of editing, adding resources and citations of existing texts and agree on the further functioning of the group.
Interested parties are invited to register for the event by e-mail info@voxfeminae.net with the email address WikiNaVoxu. Applications are accepted until Sunday, 9.5. at noon.
The event takes place as part of the OOM initiative – more open and sustainable media, which includes queerANarchive, Drugo More, Iskorak, PaRiter, Multimedia Institute and Common Zone, which have compatible interests and common goals of promoting more open and sustainable media. With the principles of inclusion, we want to encourage the diversity of content and participation in open digital goods in culture and civil society.
WOW FILMS AT VOX FEMINAE 2021 FESTIVAL

Film screenings are held in Kino Tuškanac (Tuškanac 1, Zagreb). Free admission to all screenings applies.
Glory to the Queenr: Tatia Skhirtladze, Anna Khazaradze
Austria / 2020. / documentary / 81′
Screening: Thursday May 20th @ 7 PM
Against the backdrop of Cold War, Glory to the Queen reveals stories of four legendary female chess players from Georgia who revolutionized women’s chess across the globe and became Soviet icons of female emancipation.
Tatia Skhirtladze was born in 1976 in Georgia but she lives and works in Vienna, Austria. She studied Art and Pedagogy at I. Gogebashvili State College of Pedagogy in Georgia and graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She got M.A. in Arts, DAI Dutch Art Institute in Netherlands.
Anna Khazaradze, from Georgia, holds a degree in directing from the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Anna produced a Sundance winning director William Oldroyd’s film In Mid Wickedness. She cofounded 1991 Productions to bring the best practices to their country’s film industry.
Tereza37
r: Danilo Šerbedžija
Croatia / 2020. / feature film / 100′
Screening: Friday, May 21st at 7PM
Thirty-seven-year-old Tereza lives in Split. After several miscarriages, she finds out that there is a possibility she is genetically incompatible with her husband. Pressured by her surroundings, she starts to question her marriage, which has fallen into a rut, triggering a series of events that will change her life, in the spirit of her new-found freedom and personal truth.
Danilo Šerbedžija was born in 1971 in Zagreb. He is a director and actor, known for Oslobođenje Skoplja, Tereza37 and Zagrebačke priče vol. 3.
Jedna od nas
r: Đuro Gavran
Croatia / 2020. / documentary / 51′
Screening: Saturday May 22nd at 7PM
The film follows the reactions of one community to the detection of sexual abuse. At a fifteenth graduation anniversary celebration, classmates talk about work, children, and high school adventures as they try to find a way to start a conversation about a realization that shocked them all.
Đuro Gavran finished Film and Television Directing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb and also graduated from Faculty of Graphic Arts in Zagreb. He made five documentary films(Bojan, Kelts, Tražili smo radnike i sve što smo imali, Veliki dan; Presuda) and two experimental films (Glassballetdancer i Naša lijepa domovina).
All Those Sensations in my Belly
r: Marko Dješka
Croatia / 2020. / animated / 13′
Screening: Sunday, May 22nd at 7 PM
While transitioning from male gender to female, Matia struggles with finding a sincere intimate relationship with a heterosexual male.
Marko Dješka directs and writes animated films and comic books. His student films Slaughtered (2010) and The Son of Satan (2012) won awards at a number of festivals. In 2016 he won the Oktavijan critics award for his animation Ghost Town. He is one of the founders of the film studio Adriatic Animation.
Third Body
r: Zohar Melinek Ezra, Roey Victoria Heifetz
Germany / 2020. / feature film / 75′
Screening: Sunday, May 22nd at 7 PM
Victoria, a transgender woman, embarks on a journey in search of release from the burden of the body and its limitations.
Roey Victoria Heifetz, an artist from Jerusalem, lives and works in Berlin. Heifetz studied at the Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design in Jerusalem (BFA, MFA) and at the School of the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, USA. Exhibited in numerous international groups and solo exhibitions around the world.
Zohar Melinek Ezra is a director, cinematographer and editor. Studied screenwriting at the Vancouver Film School, holds a BA in New Media from the Concordia University, Montreal, and an MFA in Filmmaking and Theory from Sapir College, Israel. Mostly known from his latest Israeli documentary series Spectrums – a portrait of the new generation of the transgender community in Israel.