The Belgian movie Little Black Spiders took the three top awards—for best feature, screenplay, and direction—when it played at last year’s Vancouver Women in Film Festival. We get a second big-screen chance to see Patrice Toye’s haunting film as part of the 17th annual European Union Film Festival, running from Friday (November 21) to December 4 at the Cinematheque.

Set in 1978, Little Black Spiders depicts a group of young women discreetly waiting out their unwanted pregnancies in a hospital attic—a practice that quietly continued in reality from the ’60s until 1985. “It’s not that long ago, and that’s a lot of young ladies,” says Toye, on the line from just outside Antwerp. “It’s cruel. They think they have this warm, hidden place where they can quietly have their babies. Very few of them knew what was going to happen to them. They really were forced to leave their babies. They even kidnapped their babies sometimes.”

Happily, a commission has been established in Belgium since the release of Toye’s movie. ”And they’re helping now to search for the lost children,” she reports. “That’s really fantastic, but the women gathered and became a group and they took courage together—not because of my film.”

Little Black Spiders screens on December 2. For EUFF capsule reviews, visit Straight.com/movies. For the full EUFF lineup, go to the Cinemateque website.