Films on Gender, Health, and Human rights
1. Girl Rising [2013] A documentary describing the education of nine girls from nine developing countries. 2. Wilhemena's War [2015] Wilhemina's War explores the lives of southern African American women and families living with HIV/AIDS. ... Directed by Emily Award winning journalist and Professor June Cross, [this film] is an intimate. personal narrative that tells the story of one family's struggle with HIV over the course of five years. Despite facing institutional and personal obstacles every step of the way, 62-year-old Wilhemina Dixon works tirelessly to combat the stigma and care for her daugher and granddaughter, both HIV-positive. ... The film bears witness to the resilience and determination of the human spirit in the face of tremendous adversity" 3. Trapped [2016] Since 2010, 288 laws regulating abortion providers have been passed by state legislatures. In total, 44 states and the District of Columbia have measures subjecting abortion providers to legal restrictions not imposed on other medical professionals. Unable to comply with these far-reaching and medically unnecessary laws, clinics have taken their fight to the courts. As the U.S. Supreme Court decides in 2016 whether individual states may essentially outlaw abortion (Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt), Trapped follows clinic workers and lawyers who are on the front lines of the battle to keep abortion safe and legal for million of American women. 4. The World Before Her [2012] The Miss India pageant is the ultimate glamour event in a country that has gone mad for beauty contests. Winning the coveted title means instant stardom, a lucrative career path and, for some girls, freedom from the constraints of a patriarchal society. As the beauty contestants move through beauty boot camp, Director Nicha Pahuja travels to another corner of India to visit a different camp for young girls, the women’s wing of the militant fundamentalist movement. Through lectures and physical combat training, these girls learn what it means to be good Hindu women and how to fight against Islam, Christianity and the onslaught of Western culture. 5. He Named Me Malala [2015] This inspiring documentary about courage, survival, and triumph over adversity tells the remarkable story of teenager Malala Yousafzai, who was attacked by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan for advocating girls’ education. Rather than be silenced, Malala emerged as a global voice for the education rights of children, and in December 2014, became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. 6. Trafficked in America [ 2018] FRONTLINE and the Investigative Reporting Program at U.C. Berkeley tell the inside story of Guatemalan teens who were forced to work against their will on an Ohio egg farm in 2014. The film sheds light on experiences of women's experiences with labor trafficking. 7. Dead Mums Don't Cry Becoming a mother in Africa can be among the most frightening and dangerous jobs in the world. This program investigates why more than half a million women die every year in pregnancy and childbirth.
1. She's Beautiful When She's Angry [2014] A provocative, rousing and often humorous account of the birth of the modern women's liberation movement in the late 1960s through to its contemporary manifestations in the new millennium, direct from the women who lived it. 2. Rape in the Fields [PBS Frontline] For the women who pick and handle the food we eat every day, sexual assault often comes with the job. 3. Rape on the Night Shift [2015] [PBS Frontline] Following up on the award-winning collaboration that produced "Rape in the Fields/Violación de un Sueño" in 2013, FRONTLINE (PBS), Univision, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), the Investigative Reporting Program (IRP) at UC Berkeley, and KQED are teaming up to uncover the sexual abuse of immigrant women who clean the malls where you shop, the banks where you do business, and the offices where you work. 4. Solar Mama [2012] Will an education in solar engineering prove to be a route out of poverty for women in Jordan? Rafea is the second wife of a Bedouin husband. She is selected to attend the Barefoot College in India that takes uneducated middle-aged women from poor communities and trains them to become solar engineers. The college's 6-month programme brings together women from all over the world. Learning about electrical components and soldering without being able to read, write or understand English is the easy part. Witness Rafea's heroic efforts to pull herself and her family out of poverty. 5. Warrior Women {2018] Warrior women is the story of Madonna Thunder Hawk, an AIM leader who cultivated a kindred group of activists' children, including her daughter Marcy, into the We Will Remember" Survival School as a Native alternative to govenment education. Together, Madonna and Marcy fought for Native rights in an environment that made them more comrades than mother-daughter. Today, with Marcy, now a mother herself, both are still at the forefront of Native issues, fighting against the environment devastation of the Dakota-Access Pipeline and for indigenous cultural values. Through their story, the film explores what it means to naviagte a movement and motherhood, and how activist legacies pass from generation to generation under a colonizing government that meets Native resistance with violence. 6. China Blue [2005] Like no other film before, China Blue is a powerful and poignant journey into the harsh world of sweatshop workers. Shot clandestinely, this is a deep-access account of what both China and the international retailers don't want us to see: how the clothes we buy are actually made. Following a pair of denim jeans from birth to sale, China Blue links the power of the U.S. consumer market to the daily lives of a Chinese factory owner and two teenaged female factory workers. Filmed both in the factory and in the workers' faraway village, this documentary provides a rare, human glimpse at China's rapid transformation into a free market society. 1. For Sama [2019] In a time of conflict and darkness in her home in Aleppo, Syria, one young woman (Waad al-Kateab) kept her camera rolling — while falling in love, getting married, having a baby and saying goodbye as her city crumbled. This is a rare first-hand account of love, motherhood, and the Syrian war, from a woman's perspective. Directed by Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, the award-winning documentary unfolds as a love letter from al-Kateab to her daughter — Sama. 7. Dolores [2018] Dolores Huerta is among the most important, yet least known, activists in American history. An equal partner in co-founding the first farm workers unions with Cesar Chavez, her enormous contributions have gone largely unrecognized. Dolores tirelessly led the fight for racial and labor justice, becoming one of the most defiant feminists of the twentieth century.
DEAD MUMS DON'T CRY documents one woman's remarkable struggle to stop mothers in her country from dying. She's Grace Kodindo - an obstetrician in the poverty-stricken central African country of Chad. Women in Chad have a 1 in 11 chance of dying during pregnancy or in childbirth.
Cutting maternal mortality by 75% by 2015 was one of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by 189 countries in 2000. In 2019, progress is behind schedule - and this film reveals it's slowest on the goals that affect women and children.
But DEAD MUMS DON'T CRY shows there is reason for hope. A few poor countries have succeeded in saving mothers' lives. BBC reporter Steve Bradshaw and Grace Kodindo travel to Honduras, which has cut maternal mortality far faster than some wealthier neighbors. A key reason is that influential men and women cared enough to make the issue a priority.
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