Eu Deveria Estar Feliz

PINK BULLET

Maternité : le grand saut

The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies.

Tempo di attesa

De Peito Aberto

This student film by the award-winning Helena Třeštíková bears many of the hallmarks of her later work. Made as a graduation piece when she was at the FAMU Film and TV Academy in Prague, we see the director developing the distinctive observational style of filmmaking that she has used so effectively throughout her career. Over the course of several months, she follows a young pregnant woman as she becomes slowly acquainted with the joys and responsibilities of motherhood.

Given the fetishizing and normalizing character that is given to motherhood in patriarchy in order to perpetuate the social order, do we truly choose to be mothers? Why is care, of fundamental vital labor, presupposed as an especially appropriate task for women?

Being mother is the most natural thing in the world. Or so it seems. Yet the demands on women with children have rarely been as overloaded and contradictory as they are in today’s Western world. Promises of happiness are often followed by disadvantages, excessive demands and feelings of guilt. The mother has become an artificially glorified ideal, which nevertheless is often legitimized by the „nature of the woman“. We live in a time when three people could claim to be the same child’s mother: egg donors give their genes to beget children, surrogate mothers deliver babies which they give away immediately after birth, and men raise children by themselves – without a woman at their side. Hence the question arises: What makes a human being a real mother?

Libby is dealing with an intense postpartum depression while caring for her baby daughter, Hazel. She looks to her partner, Pat, for understanding but his inability to embrace the issue or even acknowledge her mental state sends Libby deeper into a psychosis that threatens harm on the entire family.

In parallel stories, a social butterfly and a lower middle-class wife brace themselves for the challenge of birthing a child in the modern era.

Olivia is the mother to an adorable four month old baby girl. She should be happy, but alone in her apartment she feels a greater resistance to take care of her own child. We also meet Isa who lives carefree with her perfect family, living the dream life Olivia yearns for. The postpartum depression takes over Olivia's life and puts both hers and Isas reality at risk.

That Mothers Might Live is a 1938 American short drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann. The short is a brief account of Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis and his discovery of the need for cleanliness in 19th-century maternity wards, thereby significantly decreasing maternal mortality, and of his struggle to gain acceptance of his idea. Although Semmelweis ultimately failed in his lifetime, later scientific luminaries advanced his work in spirit like microbiologist Louis Pasteur, who provided a scientific theoretical explanation of Semmelweis' observations by helping develop the germ theory of disease and the British surgeon, Dr. Joseph Lister who revolutionized medicine putting Pasteur's research to practical use. In 1939, at the 11th Academy Awards, the film won an Oscar for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).

Marlo, a mother of three, including a newborn, is gifted a night nanny by her brother. Hesitant at first, she quickly forms a bond with the thoughtful, surprising, and sometimes challenging nanny named Tully.

Emmett enters into a nightmarish game of therapy with his wife Anya, who has inexplicably taken on the persona of his estranged and recently-deceased mother.

After giving birth to her first child at age 20, Mona Achache had the idea to make a film on childbirth. She filmed the work of midwives to produce this documentary, which became a reference in more than 500 maternity wards and private midwives' offices in France during birth preparation sessions.

By approaching the process of sexual reassignment, the work mixes data and experiences, focusing on family relationships and the nuances of the feminine.

Martine à la plage

A young couple in love: Rebecca (32) and her boyfriend Julian (34) are expecting their first child and are full of pleasant expectation. As Rebecca gives birth to a healthy boy their luck seems to be perfect. But instead of the unconditional motherly love she was expecting she is thrown into an emotional turmoil. Helplessness and desperation reign and her own baby is a stranger to her. With every day that passes her inability to meet the demands of motherhood become more and more apparent. Unable to admit this to anyone, not even Julian, she falls into a deep darkness - to the point that she realises she is becoming a threat to her child. Now only unconditional love can bring her back on track…

It is 1968 and Marianne is nineteen years old. She has been sent to a home for young girls, far from her family and friends. Here she meets other girls whose secrets have turned their lives upside down.

Helena, a woman in her early 40's, is obsessed with getting pregnant. After failing her last try, her neighbors get back from the hospital with their new born baby. Helena breaks in to their house when they´re gone, steals the baby monitor and starts listening to what happens next door.