The City of West Hollywood’s Women’s Leadership Conference & Network, in collaboration with the West Hollywood Human Rights Speakers Series, will host a mini-film festival of short films directed by women. The film festival will feature a screening of Wilhemina’s War, a documentary of Wilhemina Dixon’s tenacious fight to save her family from the unrelenting effects that HIV/AIDS have had on her family in the rural South.

Nearly half of the 50,000 new HIV cases diagnosed each year in the U.S. are in the South, where AIDS is currently one of the leading causes of death among black women.

A panel discussion on the importance and impact of education & awareness, advocacy, and media attention will follow the screening.