Tricky Women Tricky Realities 2026 kicks off tomorrow! From March 11 to 15 we are celebrating the courage, joy of experimentation and radiance of animated works by women and/or genderqueer artists. It’s a very special festival edition, as we are celebrating our 25th anniversary. For a quarter of a century, we have invited audiences to explore animation as an art form that creates spaces for resistance, transformation, and radical imagination. Please find this year’s festival program here.
And the best part: The festival will once again take place in a hybrid format. A large part of this year’s film program will be available online worldwide in cooperation with KINO VOD CLUB. Wherever you are in the world, we warmly invite you to join us as we celebrate the creativity of animation by women and genderqueer artists!
The online festival passes and tickets for the online programs are available via KINO VOD CLUB.
OUR ONLINE PROGRAMS:
Please note: The film programs will be available worldwide for 48 hours after their scheduled online start time.
SPECIALS: WORK, WORK, WORK AND LET’S GET CARRIED AWAY!
Spine (HR 2025) by Marta Margetić
In collaboration with the Vienna Chamber of Labour, WORK, WORK, WORK and LETS GET CARRIED AWAY! explore work, solidarity, and community, intertwining personal lives with collective experiences and hopes.
WORK, WORK, WORK explores the rhythms, strains, and loops of work – bodily, domestic, mechanical, and creative. The films render friction, effort, and moments of relief and trace parallels and cycles across time. Hands fold, machines churn, chores repeat, and bodies stretch against limits, revealing patterns and repetitive movements that carry the potential of opening up entirely new spaces and meanings.
LET’S GET CARRIED AWAY! brings together bold, unconventional animations about solidarity, empowerment, and the right to live differently. From post-apocalyptic communities and protest songs to prison experiences and queer emancipation fantasies, these films celebrate resilience, resistance, and the courage to challenge societal norms. Humor, absurdity, and poetic utopias meet real-world conflicts, offering a vibrant panorama of how imagination, protest, and friendship can open up new possibilities.
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Online
WORK, WORK, WORK – Wed, 11 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
LET’S GET CARRIED AWAY! – Wed, 11 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
SPECIAL: SKIN DEEP
A Body Without A Horse?, Lara Fuke, BE/FI/PT/BR 2025
The films in our special program SKIN DEEP probe the edges of the self. Bodies twist, fold, and stretch; collide, look into and mirror one another. Each work represents a searching gesture, an attempt to make sense of what it might mean to inhabit a self that is inevitably always tied to, shaped by and in dialogue with an other. After all, it is in and through relation that a self comes into being.
ONLINE
SKIN DEEP – Thu, 12 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
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INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
Paradaïz (CA 2025) by Matea Radic
The programs in our INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION are once again the vibrant heart of the festival, showcasing visionary animated films by women and/or genderqueer artists from the past two years.
ONLINE
INT. COMPETITION 1: Terms of Proximity – Thu, 12 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
INT. COMPETITION 3: Is This Paradise? – Fri, 13 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
INT. COMPETITION 2: Fluid Affairs – Sat, 14 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
INT. COMPETITION 4: String Figures – Sun, 15 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
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UP & COMING COMPETITION
Firstborn (US 2025) by Olivia G Porrill
The Up & Coming Competition presents cinematic works by newcomers – individuals who are still in schools / training institutions or showcase their debut works.
These films are brimming with expertise, technical finesse, and, above all, the courage and ingenuity to challenge the conventions of the film industry in a precise and thoughtful manner. One thing is sure: We will hear a lot more from these filmmakers in the future!
ONLINE
UP & COMING 1: Prickly Sensations – Sat, 14 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
UP & COMING 2: Ordinary Notes – Fr, 13 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
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ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM 2: FLICKERING SELVES
La Eterna Busqueda Del Quien (CO 2024) by Raquel Salome Velasquez
As bodies dissolve in a bathtub and a hidden murder edges toward revelation, a ping-pong playing artist flickers between hyper- and invisibility. These animated self-portraits are not only a means of tracing the self, rather they allow the self to be experienced in its ambiguity and constant deformation and reformation. The self as subject is inscribed into material – tangible yet elusive, solidified yet never fully fixed, beyond mere representation or external definition.
ONLINE
ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM: FLICKERING SELVES – Sun, 15 March, 7 PM (CET) + 48h
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AWARDED FILMS
THE AWARDED FILMS OF TWTR26 will also be available online at KINO VOD CLUB after the award ceremony on Sunday, 15 March, from 10 PM (CET).
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Let’s celebrate together!
We are so looking forward to seeing you online!
All the best from Vienna,
The Tricky Women Tricky Realities Team
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