What to Watch: Sundance-Supported Films Offer Perspective Into Reproductive Rights

By Stephanie Ornelas

Sometimes you have to let art speak for itself. As 2022 Sundance Film Festival favorites hit theaters and streaming sites, several new releases tackle issues surrounding reproductive rights. It was a clear theme this year when filmmakers Audrey Diwan, Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes, and Phyllis Nagy told harrowing stories of what can happen when a woman's reproductive rights are taken away.

Movies aren't solely meant to entertain; they're also designed to help us understand important issues - like reproductive health - more clearly. With The Janes releasing in just days, Happening hitting theaters last month, and Call Jane coming in October, we're spending this month looking back at the powerful Q&A panels that followed their premieres in January. Check back weekly to hear from the artists as they discuss intellectual freedom, challenging policymakers, Roe v. Wade, and more.

But first, let's take a look at the films centered on reproductive rights that premiered at past Sundance Film Festivals and/or were supported by the Sundance Institute. From tales of filmmakers and activists coming together to ignite change, to real-life accounts from women involved in a Chicago-based underground clinic, here are 20 Sundance films to help you stay informed on reproductive health and rights.

Aftershock (documentary, 2022 Sundance Film Festival) - A disproportionate number of Black women are failed every year by the U.S. maternal health system. Shamony Gibson and Amber Rose Isaac died due to childbirth complications. Directors Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee follow Gibson's and Isaac's bereaved partners, along with their grieving families, as they fight for justice and build communities of support. (Coming soon to Hulu)

Call Jane (fiction, 2022 Sundance Film Festival) - Phyllis Nagy directs this film about suburban housewife Joy (Elizabeth Banks) who lives an ordinary life with her husband and daughter until her pregnancy leads to a life-threatening condition. Now she must navigate a medical establishment unwilling to help. Her journey to find a solution to an impossible situation leads her to the Janes, a clandestine organization of women who provide Joy with an alternative - and in the process, change her life. (Coming to theaters this October)

Happening (fiction, 2022 Sundance Film Festival) - In Audrey Diwan's award-winning feature based in 1963 France, a promising young university student is devastated to learn she's pregnant. She immediately insists on termination, but her physician warns of the unsparing laws against either seeking or aiding abortions, and her tentative attempts to reach out to her closest friends are nervously rebuffed. As weeks pass, an increasingly desperate Anne persists in seeking any possible means of ending the pregnancy in hopes of reclaiming her hard-fought future. (Now in theaters)

The Janes (documentary, 2022 Sundance Film Festival) - In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on the south side of Chicago, where seven women who were part of a clandestine network were arrested and charged. Using code names, fronts, and safe houses to protect themselves and their work, the accused had built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves Jane. Through The Janes, co-directors and Sundance Film Festival alumni Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes offer firsthand accounts from the women at the center of the group, many speaking on the record for the first time. (Coming to HBO Max June 8)

Just Another Girl On The I.R.T (fiction, 1992 Sundance Film Festival, Collection screening in 2022) - Director Leslie Harris' coming-of-age chronicle tells the story of an intelligent high schooler who aspires to get out of her poor neighborhood, go to college and become a doctor. But her dreams begin to slip away as she discovers she is pregnant. (Available to stream on Hulu, The Roku Channel and Starz)

Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa (documentary short, 2020 Sundance Film Festival) - At a Philadelphia abortion helpline, counselors answer nonstop calls from women who seek to end pregnancies but can't afford to. In this documentary by filmmakers Barbara Attie, Mike Attie and Janet Goldwater, audiences see how economic stigma and questionable laws determine who has access to abortion. (Available to stream for free on Amazon Prime and The Roku Channel)

Abortion Helpline, This is Lisa

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (fiction, 2020 Sundance Film Festival) - Director and screenwriter Eliza Hittman's film follows Autumn, a stoic, quiet teenager in rural Pennsylvania facing an unintended pregnancy. Left without viable alternatives for termination in her home state, she and her cousin board a bus to New York City. With only a clinic address in hand and nowhere to stay, the two girls venture into the unfamiliar city. (Available to rent on Apple TV)

Premature (fiction, 2019 Sundance Film Festival) - In director Rashaad Ernesto Green's film set in Harlem, a 17-year-old poet begins a romance with a music producer who has just moved to the city during her last months at home before starting college. When she becomes pregnant, she's faced with a difficult decision that could change her life forever. (Available to stream on Hulu, The Roku Channel and Amazon Prime)

Lucia, Before and After (documentary short, 2017 Sundance Film Festival) - Anu Valia's award-winning Sundance short follows a young woman who, after traveling 200 miles, waits out the Texas state-mandated 24-hour waiting period before her abortion can proceed. (Watch now on Vimeo)

Motherland (documentary, 2017 Sundance Film Festival, DFP grant) - This stirring v rit portrait directed by Ramona Diaz takes viewers into the heart of the planet's busiest maternity hospital in the Philippines. Unseen

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