Antonia's Line
Antonia's Line (Dutch: Antonia) is a 1995 Dutch drama film written and directed by Marleen Gorris, centering on the widow Antonia who returns to her rural village after World War II to inherit her mother's farm and builds a self-sustaining matriarchal community across five generations of women and their allies.[1] The narrative traces the lineage from Antonia (Willeke van Ammelrooy) and her daughter Danielle (Els Dottermans) through challenges including male violence, intellectual pursuits, and unconventional relationships, emphasizing resilience, female solidarity, and rejection of patriarchal norms.[2] Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival where it won the People's Choice Award, the film achieved international acclaim and secured the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 68th Academy Awards, marking the first such win for a woman-directed feature in that category.[3][4] Gorris's screenplay portrays a "feminist fairy tale" of cyclical life and destiny, blending humor, tragedy, and optimism while critiquing societal constraints on women, though some reception highlighted its episodic structure and idealized matriarchy as diverging from realism.[5][6]