Each month, beneath Nantucket’s legendary dark skies, the new moon arrives—fully present and yet unseen, a threshold between past and future. Like the new moon itself, women who have journeyed through darkness often discover and recover their fullest selves by illuminating what once lay hidden. Nantucket’s NEW Moon Fest celebrates women filmmakers who courageously step from the shadows into the transformative light of storytelling.

With its celebrated history of strong, independent women, Nantucket is a natural home for a female-led film festival. For centuries, island women have shaped businesses, households and community affairs—a legacy of resilience and self-determination that enriches contemporary women’s narratives.

Launched by NCTV in 2024, the NEW Moon Fest—Nantucket Empowering Women—builds on this tradition, celebrating the wild woman archetype and the fierce, intuitive and creative essence with in every woman. Hosted at the iconic Siasconset Casino, the festival showcases the works of women storytellers from around the world, honoring their creativity, perseverance, strength and power of voice.

“This is medicine—soul medicine,” said Director of Programming Stephanie Serra, who as a filmmaker herself is a passionate advocate for the transformative power of storytelling through film. “I see myself as a curator in the Latin sense—to curate is to cure. This is about the healing of souls."

Through her work, Serra selects films that confront complex and often uncomfortable realities—from cultural traditions surrounding female genital mutilation to the struggles of incarcerated women and survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence—as well as the evolving challenges all women face throughout the different stages of their lives. Serra seeks to showcase transformation, understanding and healing through the power of film.

“NEW Moon Fest will explore what our personal powers are, the places in which women have become powerless, and advocate for the strength of our voices,” she said.

The inaugural NEW Moon Fest in 2024 received film submissions from 17 countries. For the 2025 festival, to be held May 24, that number has grown to 22, reflecting the festival’s expanding reach and its commitment to amplifying women’s voices worldwide. With awards categories such as Most Empowering Film, The Wild Woman Award and The Grey Lady Award, the festival highlights bold and resonant storytelling.

The 2024 official selections ranged from a coming-of-age film exploring Black British girlhood to a documentary following female inmates as they underwent transformative voice work. These films challenge and inspire audiences to hold space for diverse women’s experiences. British actress Busayo Ige, who wrote Essex Girls, won last year’s Best Director award. Her film draws from her experience as a young woman of Nigerian descent growing up in a predominantly white English neighborhood. Through authentic portrayals of young Black women like herself, she aims to empower and inspire newfound confidence in others.

“This film gives girls like me—who grew up in environments where hardly anyone else looks like them—the chance to see their experiences reflected on screen,” she said. “I channeled my own experience into something universal: What is it like to be a Black girl in an almost entirely white space, and how does it shape self-acceptance?”

The Girl Inside, a mini-documentary in the 2024 festival by Kate Bryan, film creator and host of the 1 Girl Revolution podcast, follows female inmates in Chicago’s Cook County Jail—a facility heavily criticized for overcrowding, violence and inadequate mental health care. The short documentary follows detainees unable to afford bail as they await trial, without having been convicted, as they participate in the academic course “Storytelling as a Healing Art,” taught by interdisciplinary voice artist and teacher Dr. Laura Biagi. Through vocal exercises designed to release grief and uncover hidden trauma, students reconnect with their authentic selves. Biagi encourages them to explore what their own voices have to reveal, prompting them to respond toa profound statement: “I am your voice, and this is what I want you to know.”

Selected as Most Empowering Film, The Girl Inside amplifies a story about women whose voices often go unheard. “There are many issues in the world because people are not able to be heard,” said Bryan. “Our voices are our revolution, and we must seek opportunities to speak up for those who are forgotten and to elevate voices that are too often ignored. Above all, we need to listen. We have the power to change the world through our lives, and if we truly believed that, the world would look so different.”

This year, the NEW Moon Fest highlights include films like Barricade, a psychological exploration by London-based writer-director Alice Johannessen. The film delves into the lasting impact of a teen sexual assault on a school bus and how societal norms—especially the “boys will be boys” mentality—diminish the victim’s personhood by framing such violations as everyday occurrences.

Johannessen—whose films are shown throughout the U.K. to educate teachers and students about sexual violence—believes that by dismissing a passing moment of impropriety, or quickly labeling it as unremarkable, such abuse is allowed to take root and cause serious damage.

“Our aim with Barricade was to make a film that immersed audiences in the feelings teenage girls experience on an average school day,” Johannessen said. “The insecurity, rage, euphoria, blood, sweat and tears. To ask what happens when all these feelings can no longer be contained? Where do they go when an institution repeatedly fails to find a space or outlet for them? By ending the story with a moment of intense catharsis, I hope audiences will consider why this is such a rarity for survivors and victims.”

Another standout in the 2025 lineup is We Did Not Consent, an 18-minute short film directed by Dorothy Allen-Pickard that explores the U.K.’s “spy cops” scandal. For over 50 years, a secret unit within London’s Metropolitan Police infiltrated activist groups, luring women into false romantic relationships.

In the film, three of these women reclaim their narratives by reenacting and directing scenes from their pasts. Wearing theatrical masks to protect their identities, they use the creative process to confront and communicate their trauma. Allen-Pickard emphasizes the importance of allowing the women to control their stories—to “find a method where these reductive versions of their life stories could play out and the women could interrupt and redirect them to reveal something that was more true to them.” This transformation of deep psychic wounds into truth and healing embodies the very essence of the NEW Moon Fest.

These deeply personal and culturally resonant films give rise to the wild woman’s voice—unfiltered, courageous and transformative. Suspended in the moment between darkness and renewal, we reclaim our stories and rewrite our futures. As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, reminds us: “Creativity is meant to be an act of clear consciousness...or else all comes to nothing.