The European Film Academy – one of the most important international institutions promoting and nurturing European cinema – has developed a special film curation project called ‘Underscore’, which offers a selection of films to academy members, highlighting relevant topics and filmographies. The 2026 March edition titled ‘The Female Age: Ageing Women in 21st Century Eastern European Cinema’ was realised in a special collaboration between EFA and the AGE-C: Ageing and Gender in European Cinema research project, with the aim to showcase older adult femininities across contemporary Eastern European cinema, including fiction film, documentary and animation. The selection highlights complex female protagonists navigating social change, family relations, and shifting cultural perceptions of ageing.

‘The Female Age’ was curated by three members of the AGE-C project, Asja Makarević (Goethe University Frankfurt), and two members of the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University, Andrea Virginás (associate professor) and Boglárka Angéla Farkas (PhD student). The programme was further supported by the highly esteemed Romanian film producer Ada Solomon, who produced the selection’s Child’s Pose (Poziția copilului, Călin Peter Netzer, 2013). An extract of her endorsement interview can be watched on this link.

Accompanying the selection, the curators also wrote an article, which presents the included films and can be accessed here. The film programme will remain available until the beginning of April to all EFA members on the European Film Academy’s VOD platform.

*The poster was designed by Rebeka Hatházi, doctoral student, Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University.