Athena Film Festival Reveals 2023 Winners of Black List-Inspired Athena List (Exclusive)

The Athena Film Festival has announced the winners and finalists for the 2023 Athena List, the festival’s Black List-inspired selection of unproduced screenplays focused on female leadership.

High-profile projects that were featured on past editions of the Athena List, part of the Barnard-based festival, include the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic. On the Basis of SexChinonye Chukwu’s Clemency and Patricia Clarkson-starrer Lilly about Lilly Ledbetter and her fight for fair pay.

The winners of the 2023 Athena List are Driverlessby Harry Leigh; Going Dutchby Kate Condé Hamilton; Laylayon, by Nic Yulo; and Scarce, by Mrittika Sarin. The finalists are 72by Marissa Chibas; Blue Veilby Shireen Alihaji; The Copeland Case, by Cecilia Copeland; and Requiem for a Glacierby Stephanie Falkeis.

Driverless focuses on a female robotics engineer who takes a cross-country journey of self-discovery using the company’s driverless car prototype. In Going Dutcha scientist finds herself entangled with Amsterdam’s wealthiest bachelor and a potential Rembrandt. Scarce follows a cynical software engineer who tries to right the injustice of an underprivileged community’s water supply being stolen. And Laylayon traces an immigrant mother’s journey back to her ancestral home in the Philippine jungle where she has to confront the ghosts and tragedies of her past.

Finalist 72 centers around a Cuban refugee and her teenage daughter’s secret on New Year’s Eve in New York, 1972. The Copeland Casebased on the true story of the Copeland kidnappings, follows a woman’s fight in the US and Israel to get back her children. Blue Veil follows a Muslim teenager as she grapples with her identity amid new exposure in a post-9/11 world. And Requiem for a Glacierbased on a short film, follows a glaciologist who visits her estranged home in a remote village in the Alps and confronts her past while challenged by her activist mother over a local glacier that could become a ski resort.

The 13th annual Athena Film Festival, a joint partnership between Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership and the initiative Women and Hollywood, will take place from March 2-5 on Barnard’s campus. Click here for more info about This year’s Athena List winners and finalists.