Barnard is no stranger to seeing female leaders on campus, and this week’s Athena Film Festival: A Celebration of Women and Leadership will bring another host of female luminaries—this time, from the film industry—to its doorstep.

In its first year, the festival will run from Feb. 10 to 13 and includes around 20 film screenings, along with panels of actors, directors, and other filmmakers.

The festival is partially the brainchild of Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership Studies director Kathryn Kolbert, who conceived it when she attended a reception last year in honor of Oscar-nominated director Jane Campion. Campion’s sensual films from “The Piano” (1993) to “Bright Star” (2010) are noted for their unforgettable female characters.

“Many of these women [at the event] talked about the paucity of women leaders in the film industry and the lack of recognition for women filmmakers,” Kolbert wrote in an email. “After the event, head of Women and Hollywood Melissa Silverstein and I put our heads together, and the Athena Film Festival was born.”

For Kolbert, Barnard was the natural pick to host the film festival: “What better place to showcase women’s leadership than the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at the most sought-after women’s college in the U.S.?” To host the majority of the events in Barnard’s recently built symbol of pride and progress, the Diana Center was also a foregone conclusion.

Rah-rah feminism aside, the festival lineup of strong movies with the occasional dash of Hollywood intrigue may also hold attraction for casual cinephiles or the merely star-curious. Debra Granik is one of only 10 women to have ever directed a Best Picture nominee feature film. She and the co-writer of “Winter’s Bone,” Anne Rosellini, will discuss the film with Anne Thompson of the blog Thompson on Hollywood after its screening in Miller Theatre.

Barnard alumna Greta Gerwig, BC ’06, who was tapped to become the next “big” actress after turning in one of last year’s most ballyhooed breakthroughs in the Noah Baumbach vehicle “Greenberg” (2010), is scheduled to receive an award and talk about her career with Vanity Fair’s Leslie Bennetts.

Further highlights of the festival will include a screening of the film “Desert Flower,” which chronicles the journey of an African nomad-turned-international-model and advocate for women, and “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican,” a documentary about impassioned Roman Catholic women who defy the Church by illicitly becoming priests.

2010 was a remarkably robust year for women in front of and behind the camera, with female-directed movies ranking up among the most critically acclaimed of the year. Female characters also dominated the buzz boards, ranging from the assertive teen heroines of “True Grit” and “Winter’s Bone” to the endlessly talked-about women characters in “The Fighter” and “Black Swan.”

Festival student coordinator Ashley Bush, BC ’11, said that despite receiving hundreds of film submissions from around the world, selecting films that conveyed a sense of female empowerment was not an easy task. “Too few films feature women in prominent roles,” she said.

She hopes that the Athena Film Festival will rouse a dialogue about the importance of women leadership, within and outside of the film world. “Film is a medium in which nearly everyone can relate to and certainly has the power to inspire, reveal truths, and most importantly, create conversation,” she said.

Kolbert is uncertain of the film festival’s prospects in the future. “We hope to make this a tradition at Barnard, but no firm decision has been made about the next installment,” she said.

Addressing a concern that the festival’s girl power sensibilities might be unappealing to some, both Kolbert and Bush urged all men to look into the film festival, with Kolbert in particular taking note of the festival’s dates coinciding with Valentine’s Day weekend.

“Perhaps men can celebrate the holiday by attending the festival with the women they love,” Kolbert suggested. “On top of seeing some amazing films, men might get some brownie points with their female friends,” Bush added.