WOW Athens is back for 2025!

This year’s WOW Athens program includes speeches by iconic personalities and bold voices, such as “Bad Feminist” Roxane Gay, award-winning American writer Carmen Maria Machado, and producer of the feminist series The Principles of PleasureThalia Mavros.

The festival’s film screening program proposes two films that help open the debate on gender identity and social change: Orlando, My Political Biography, by pioneer queer philosopher Paul B. Preciado, based on Virginia Woolf’s classic novel; and the documentary RBG, which captures the life journey of jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg from young law student to symbol of justice.

Music has always been an integral part of the festival, and the concert of Arooj Aftab, the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy Award, stands out in this year’s program, combining the Persian tradition with jazz and electronic music elements.

From the SNFCC Lobby and the National Library of Greece to the Esplanade and the Perimeter of Stavros Niarchos Park, the exhibitions of WOW Athens invite the public to participate in a discourse that goes beyond the boundaries of a conventional exhibition space. The geometric sculptures of German artist Claudia Wieser transform the public space; the photographs of Marilena Grispou explore the concepts of women’s mental, emotional and physical safety; and the works of Georgia Lale pay tribute to a growing number of femicide victims.

This year’s festival program is complemented by numerous panel discussions on critical social issues, workshops, mentoring sessions, DJ sets, concerts, and the WOW Marketplace, a vibrant space of women’s entrepreneurship and activism.

Find out more about WOW Athens here and subscribe to our newsletter for updates as the programme is announced in the coming months.

The WOW Foundation works in partnership with amazing women and organisations to create WOW Festivals across the world. The WOW organisers in each location ensure the content is created by the local community for the local community. While each festival is different in its own wonderful, unique way, there are elements that stay consistent at every WOW Festival wherever you are in the world; from the WOW Marketplace to Under 10's Feminist Corners.

In the past decade, the WOW movement has grown from its London beginnings to find homes everywhere from Beijing and Kathmandu to Baltimore and Brisbane.

To date, there have been more than 150 festivals and events across six continents, reaching more than five million people from thousands of women in favelas at WOW Rio to Territory women at WOW Katherine.