KATHMANDU:- The two-day 14th European Union Film Festival (EUFF) began today, November 15, to the public at Chhaya Centre. This year’s festival features a total of 25 films, including 10 European feature films, 6 BAFTA-nominated shorts, and 9 Nepali short films.

One film from the line-up deserves special attention: Girl from Tomorrow by Marta Savina (Italy).

Set in Sicily, the film captures a cultural and emotional landscape that many Nepalis will unexpectedly recognise. Anyone who has watched The Godfather knows that Sicilian stories, even when wrapped in crime and violence, are fundamentally about resilience—the kind born from generations of hardship, migration, poverty, and resistance. Girl from Tomorrow draws from the same soil, but tells a quieter, more intimate story: a young girl and her family standing up against deeply rooted social norms, religious authority, and the shame imposed on victims.

The narrative follows a teenage girl who survives a sexual assault and a community that expects her to stay silent. She and her family refuse to comply. The most striking line in the film comes during a moment of unbearable tension, when the mother says something to the effect of:
“We feel humiliated because only they are speaking. Once we begin to speak, the humiliation will no longer be ours.” It is one of those lines that transcends cinema; it becomes a commentary on how societies suppress victims by giving power to the perpetrators’ voices.