USA – ShortList 2020: ‘Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa’ Filmmakers on Urgent Need to Make the Short (Video)

Documentary follows counselors working for a Philadelphia abortion helpline who try to help women seeking to end a pregnancy but can’t afford to

Beatrice Verhoeven
August 8, 2020

After the 2016 election, filmmakers Janet Goldwater, Barbara Attie and Mike Attie said they felt a sense or urgency to make “Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa,” a short documentary about counselors working for a Philadelphia abortion hotline who try to help women seeking to end a pregnancy but can’t afford it.

“‘Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa’ was conceived with a sense of urgency in the aftermath of the 2016 election,” Goldwater said of the film, a finalist for TheWrap’s ShortList Film Festival. “Barbara and I surveyed the bleak political scenario for an untold “story” that would shed a light on the increased suffering we feared this presidency would bring. We settled on the growing threats to reproductive rights, a topic we have explored in a number of feature documentaries in the past 25 years.”

Continued: https://www.thewrap.com/shortlist-2020-abortion-helpline-this-is-lisa-filmmakers-on-urgent-need-to-make-the-short-video/

08.08.2020

abortion documentary

Abortion Helpline This Is Lisa

Motherless: A Legacy of Loss From Illegal Abortion

Roe v. Wade

Panorama, America’s Abortion War: A nuanced look at both sides of the debate

Panorama, America’s Abortion War: A nuanced look at both sides of the debate
Review: A documentary on the fights to keep and outlaw abortion in the US south

July 23, 2019
Ed Power

It’s just over a year since the Eighth Amendment was repealed and the Republic began catching up with most of the rest of the world in terms of access to abortion. Panorama, America’s Abortion War (BBC One) is a reminder of the tumult we have left behind.

Hilary Andersson’s documentary avoids the obvious pitfall of smug Europeans lecturing Bible-thumping Americans on how to run their affairs. Instead, this is a nuanced overview of an issue that serves as a prism for the US’s culture wars. Campaigners on both sides obviously regard abortion as a matter of black and white. Andersson’s mission is to interrogate the myriad of greys she discerns in the middle.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/panorama-america-s-abortion-war-a-nuanced-look-at-both-sides-of-the-debate-1.3964688

USA – At SIFF, a day in the life of doctors who provide abortions

At SIFF, a day in the life of doctors who provide abortions
The documentary ‘Our Bodies, Our Doctors’ profiles women’s health professionals in the Pacific Northwest.

By Brangien Davis
May 28, 2019

A day in the life of an abortion provider usually starts in a parking lot. She gets out of her car, slings a purse and maybe a lunch bag over her shoulder, and walks toward a nondescript building. She might greet a protester on the way in, might note the giant baby photo on the side of a box truck parked in deliberate view. She passes through the clinic doors, where a circular sticker bears the image of a black handgun with a red slash across it. Once inside, the doctor joins her team of receptionists, medical assistants and nurses, and prepares for the first patient.

Behind the headlines, behind the legal battles, behind the politics, protests and posters are the people who go to work every day to provide women with family-planning services, including contraception and abortion.

Continued: https://crosscut.com/2019/05/siff-day-life-doctors-who-provide-abortions

Abortion Protests Come To Cannes

Abortion Protests Come To Cannes

By Jamie Samhan
May 18, 2019

Ahead of the premiere of abortion documentary “Let It be Law (Que Sea Ley)” from Argentine director Juan Solanas at Cannes, 60 women gathered to protest the anti-abortion laws across the world.

The women from Argentina waved green flags and signs (green is the colour of the pro-choice movement in Argentina). The protest was against a rejection of a law in Argentina to legalize abortion but is very similar to what the United States is currently facing.

Continued: https://etcanada.com/news/454333/abortion-protests-come-to-cannes/

USA – ‘Reversing Roe’ Review: Netflix Documentary Condemns the Politicization of Abortion — Telluride

‘Reversing Roe’ Review: Netflix Documentary Condemns the Politicization of Abortion — Telluride
Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s Netflix documentary unpacks the process by which abortion grew from a personal issue to a political one.

David Ehrlich
Sep 1, 2018

Like any abortion documentary worth the time to watch, Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s “Reversing Roe” doesn’t explicitly argue for or against a woman’s right to choose. And while there’s little doubt that Stern and Sundberg could make a persuasive case for reproductive rights, as several interview subjects do, it’s only so valuable to preach to the choir — especially when a film is released into the apolitical cyberspace of Netflix rather than a handful of arthouse theaters in America’s largest and most liberal cities.

Ultimately, “Reversing Roe” is a productive contribution to its ever-growing genre because it sharply dissects the process by which abortion soured from a private medical issue to a public political one.

Continued: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/09/reversing-roe-review-netflix-documentary-1201999510/

U.S.: New HBO Documentary Follows Women On Both Sides of the Abortion Debate

New HBO Documentary Follows Women On Both Sides of the Abortion Debate
By Samantha Cooney
April 3, 2017
'I didn’t want this film to be an advocacy piece'

In 2014, Missouri lawmakers passed a 72-hour waiting period on abortion, one of the most stringent waiting periods in the nation. About a year later, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia would stop performing abortions, leaving only one abortion clinic left in the state. These developments made it even more difficult for Missouri women to access the procedure in the state, which already had a number of other anti-abortion laws on the books.

“I knew that laws were being passed with every legislative session, and there wasn’t much media attention,” director Tracy Droz Tragos, a Missouri native, told Motto in a phone interview. “I wanted to know how these laws were affecting women in my home state.”

So, on the eve of the implementation of the 72-hour waiting period in 2014, director Droz Tragos decided to investigate just that. The result is Abortion: Stories Women Tell, a documentary. The film goes inside the doors of the state’s last abortion clinic, introduces viewers to advocates who both support and oppose the restrictions and provides an intimate look at women wrestling with the decision.

Continued at source: Motto: http://motto.time.com/4722652/abortion-stories-women-tell-tracy-doz-tragos/

03.04.2017