by Scottie Andrew, CNN
Thu June 2, 2022
(CNN) During the making of "Obvious Child," director/screenwriter Gillian Robespierre had a few balls in the air.
Would Jenny Slate's Donna, a fledgling stand-up comedian with a penchant for potty humor, end up with Jake Lacy's buttoned-up Max? And would Robespierre find investors who'd trust her to make the movie she wanted as a first-time filmmaker?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/entertainment/abortion-film-tv-representation-cec/index.html
Audrey Diwan’s 1960s-set drama Happening is the latest in a wave of films on an issue that is increasingly topical
Rachel Pronger
Fri 22 Apr 2022
When Audrey Diwan first started writing a script about abortion, people would ask her why. Adapting Annie Ernaux’s memoir about the author’s struggle to obtain an illegal abortion as a student in 1960s France, Diwan knew the story was important, but it was difficult to persuade others of its relevance. Fast forward a few years, and no one is asking why. When Happening premiered at the Venice film festival last year, critics were quick to draw connections between the plight of Anne (the character in the film) and the tightening of abortion restrictions around the world. As it lands in UK cinemas this week, this period piece feels timelier than ever.
Sundance 2022: the films are reminding us what it was like when women did not have the right to choose
by SHARON WAXMAN
January 23, 2022
The women at Sundance are screaming at the tops of their lungs. They are saying: Why are you taking our rights away? Why are you turning the clock back 50 years?
As Roe v. Wade hits its 49-year anniversary this weekend with a near-assurance that it will never reach the 50-year landmark, multiple films at the Sundance Film Festival are reminding us what it was like when women did not have the right to choose an abortion.
Continued: https://www.thewrap.com/female-filmmakers-sundance-abortion-rights/
"This year, what's happening politically right now is just so divorced from the representations of abortion that we're seeing on TV."
Dec 14, 2021
Caroline Reilly, Rewire News
Abortion is normal and common, but you wouldn’t know it from watching television. Just ask Steph Herold, a research analyst with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) who studies onscreen abortion narratives and how they impact viewers’ understanding of abortion care.
The results are mixed. In 2021, Herold and her colleagues at ANSIRH’s Abortion Onscreen project found 47 abortion plotlines on 42 television shows, from The Handmaid’s Tale to This Is Us.
By Silvia Aloisi, Reuters
Sep 11, 2021
VENICE (Reuters) -"Happening" (L'événement), a hard-hitting French drama about illegal abortion in the 1960s, won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice festival on Saturday.
The film, by director Audrey Diwan, wowed viewers on the Lido waterfront with its portrayal of a young woman desperate to arrange a termination, at a time when it could mean a prison term or death, to continue with her studies.
September 6, 2021
Venice,
Italy, Sep 6 (EFE).- French-Lebanese director Audrey Diwan has caused a stir
with her immersive and visceral adaptation of L’événement, a novel through
which writer Annie Ernaux narrates her own secret abortion back in the 1960s.
The film puts the viewer in the shoes of the protagonist – played by the
French-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei – while stressing the political
dimension of the original novel.
July 9, 2021
Reuters
CANNES, France, July 9 (Reuters) - The director behind "Lingui", a Cannes Film Festival entry about a teenager's battle in Chad to get an abortion, said on Friday he hoped the story would resonate well beyond the African country, including in places like the United States where there are vocal anti-abortion movements.
Mahamet-Saleh Haroun said he was inspired to explore the issue after reading stories about babies abandoned or killed by their young mothers in Chad, where abortion is only allowed in specific cases where a woman's life is in danger.
From buddy comedies to dramas, movies focused on abortion barriers tell a story that shouldn’t need to be told
By KYLIE CHEUNG
PUBLISHED JUNE 6, 2021
Last week, Hulu's "Plan B" became the latest movie to focus on the complex, stigmatizing and sexist barriers to reproductive care, which are especially difficult for young people. In Natalie Morales' directorial debut, two South Dakota high school students, Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) and Lupe (Victoria Morales) have 24 hours to find emergency contraception after Sunny's first sexual encounter. The problem is, the only pharmacist in their small hometown denies Sunny access to the pill citing the "conscience clause."
To be clear, emergency contraception is entirely different from abortion care, preventing rather than ending a pregnancy that's already underway. But other than that important distinction, "Plan B" continues a growing trend of movies in which seeking abortion or other reproductive care through tremendous cost, geographical and legislative barriers isn't just a subplot — it's the main storyline.
Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/06/06/abortion-road-trip-movies-plan-b-unpregnant-grandma/
And we need them more than ever.
By Jenny Singer
September 10, 2020
There’s a moment in Unpregnant, a buddy comedy movie about abortion now streaming on HBO Max, that is so magical, so dead on in its rendering of the fearful joy of being alive that it will stay with you far longer than any headline spelling the doom of legal abortion.
Two teenage girls—played by Barbie Ferreira and Haley Lu Richardson—are hundreds of miles from home, literally upside down on a whirling fairground ride on a spring night in Texas, shouting truths to each other.
Continued: https://www.glamour.com/story/unpregnant-obvious-child-abortion-comedies
As women’s reproductive rights remain under constant threat, Beth Webb speaks to actor and filmmaker Kelly O’Sullivan about the importance of showing abortions on-screen
Beth Webb
July 20, 2020
About 30 minutes into Chicago-set indie comedy Saint Frances, Kelly O’Sullivan’s Bridget undergoes a medical abortion. In-between forcefully vomiting and sitting uncomfortably on the toilet, the 34-year-old waitress spends the day in the arms of her lover, watching nature documentaries and reading chapters from Harry Potter.
“It was very important to me to have a sweet abortion montage,” says O’Sullivan – who drew on her own medical abortion for her screenwriting debut, which is out in the UK now – from her home in Chicago. “Women and girls walk away from watching abortions in film and TV feeling truly scared, and that might impact the way they think about making a choice like that for themselves in the future.”
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
LinkedIn