STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Family of Woman Film Festival will return this week after a two-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But this year it will be held in person only in Boise as part of the Andrus Center for Public Policy’s Women and Leadership Conference. That conference is being held Tuesday through Thursday, Sept. 13-15.

Wood River Valley residents who do not wish to travel to Boise may see the films and speakers virtually at https://familyofwomanfilmfestival.org.

This year’s films are:

• The Babushkas of Chernobyl,” which director Holly Morris shot in Ukraine. The film, which won the Jury Award for Direction at the Los Angeles Film Festival, follows a group of determined women who grow veggies and raise chickens and pigs in an abandoned landscape inside the radioactive Exclusion Zone.

  Following the film, Morris will join Festival Founder Peggy Goldwyn for a discussion and update on the Babushkas, who are facing another extraordinary challenge with the Russian invasion.

• “Dreamcatcher” takes viewers inside the hidden world of prostitution and sexual trafficking through the eyes of one of its survivors Brenda Myers-Powell. Myers-Powell is one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Women and Leadership Conference and she will also participate in a panel discussion with Native American women regarding gender violence and sexual trafficking.

The author of the autobiography, “Leaving Breezy Street,” she escaped an abusive home at 14 only to become the prey of human traffickers. She founded The Dreamcatcher Foundation to help others change their lives and live their dreams.

Goldwyn will interview Myers-Powell in addition to showing her film.

“Our collaboration with Boise State University to show films and bring speakers to the Andrus Center for Public Policy’s Women and Leadership Conference has allowed outreach for The Festival and the work of UNFPA to reach far beyond anything we have been able to accomplish before,” said Goldwyn.

Goldwyn established the festival in 2007 to support the work of UNFPA, the United Nations agency responsible for women’s rights and reproductive health. “Last year’s virtual Leadership Conference had more than a thousand subscribers from 35 states and seven countries.”

The films and speakers will be available for 72 hours on demand. Supporters of Friends of UNFPA can purchase tickets for $50 without subscribing to the conference at https://familyofwomanfilmfestival.org.