The bleached palette and home-movie aesthetics of Super 8 footage provide the image track for this testimonial about an illegal abortion in Mexico City in the 1960s, delivered in voiceover by the filmmaker’s mother. In its account of this intimate and disorienting memory, Lesser Choices summons a time of profound uncertainty—a moment from an era without rights—and offers a warning to the present.
Set in a speakeasy in Atlanta, “Twenty” is a feature documentary about fifteen young people making it through 2020. The film is an observational time capsule that lays bare the raw reflections of a group of people surviving a year that will be seared into our generational memory.
Les trente courageuses de La Réunion, une affaire oubliée
Women have always sought ways to terminate unwanted pregnancies, despite powerful patriarchal structures and systems working against them. This film provides a historical overview of how church, state and the medical establishment have determined policies concerning abortion. From this cross-cultural survey--filmed in Ireland, Japan, Thailand, Peru, Colombia, and Canada--emerges one reality: only a small percentage of the world's women has access to safe, legal operations.
This fascinating political look at a little-known chapter in women's history tells the story of "Jane", the Chicago-based women's health group who performed nearly 12,000 safe illegal abortions between 1969 and 1973 with no formal medical training. As Jane members describe finding feminism and clients describe finding Jane, archival footage and recreations mingle to depict how the repression of the early sixties and social movements of the late sixties influenced this unique group. Both vital knowledge and meditation on the process of empowerment, Jane: An Abortion Service showcases the importance of preserving women's knowledge in the face of revisionist history. JANE: AN ABORTION SERVICE was funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The priest Børre Knudsen is Norway's most infamous anti-abortionist, and much hated for this. He fought for his cause without thinking about the consequences for his family and his children even in the worlds most democratic country.
What images do we associate with abortion and why? Where do these images and the emotional scripts in our head come from? How do they influence women who (want to) have an abortion, how do they shape the general discussion? Franzis Kabisch’s personal desktop documentary investigates these questions with great precision, clarity and humour (yes, humour, too!).
At a public hospital in Nicaragua, Ob/Gyn Dr. Carla Cerrato must choose between following a law that bans all abortions and endangers her patients or taking a risk and providing the care that she knows can save a woman's life. In 2007, Dr. Cerrato’s daily routine took a detour. The newly elected government of Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary who converted to Catholicism to win votes, overturned a 130-year-old law protecting therapeutic abortion. The new law entirely prohibits abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or when a woman’s life is at stake. As Carla and her colleagues navigate this dangerous dilemma, the impact of this law emerges—illuminating the tangible reality of prohibition against the backdrop of a political, religious, and historically complex national identity. The emotional core of the story—the experiences and situations of the young women and girls who are seeking care—illustrate the ethical implications of one doctor's response.
El Genocidio Silencioso
French documentary campaigning for the liberalization of abortion and contraception, directed by Charles Belmont and Marielle Issartel in 1973.
Three women intimately share how they faced the world and their own family when deciding to terminate a pregnancy.
Avortement, les croisés contre-attaquent
L'autre pilule, un combat pour les femmes
Aborcja. Polski paradoks
Post Dobbs decision the Red River Women’s Clinic was forced to close its doors in Fargo, ND and move a mile and a half across the Red River to Moorhead, MN, into a state with very different reproductive rights legislation, in order to continue providing abortion services as well as other women’s healthcare to a wide region. This is a story of a collective action and resiliency.
A poetic and reflexive documentary approach to reproductive healthcare access in North Carolina, specifically on Indigenous reservations.
In the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a filmmaker is forced to confront the past when s/he returns to Kentucky to film the last abortion clinic in their home state – the very clinic where she sought help after she was raped as a girl years before.
Arson at a Planned Parenthood and the closing of a community clinic endanger the lives of women in Knoxville, TN. A teaching doctor reflects on what the post-Dobbs world means for her patients and her students, who are the next generation of reproductive care workers.
Interviews from women involved in the 70's and 80's rock music industry. An examination of the people taking advantage of underage fans and calling for a "Me too" movement in the music world
FRONTLINE follows the intersecting lives of twenty-two-year-old antiabortionist, John Salvi III, charged with murder in the armed attacks on two Massachusetts health clinics, and his victims, Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols. Through in-depth, personal interviews with family members and friends, clinic employees, police, Pro-Life and Pro-Choice protesters, witnesses, and religious leader Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, the film draws a portrait of what led to Salvi’s brutal acts of violence. From the producers of ‘Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo,’ this two-hour program crosses the emotionally charged terrain of the abortion battle.