Contractions
Health & Wellness
•
12m
Directed by Lynne Sachs • Documentary • With Dr. Kimberly Looney, Anonymous Driver • 12 minutes
In the wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade, “Contractions” takes us to Memphis, Tennessee where we contemplate the discontinuation of abortion services at a women’s health clinic. We listen to an obstetrician and a reproductive rights activist who movingly lay out these vital issues. We watch 14 women and their male allies who witness and perform with their backs to the camera. In a state where a woman can no longer make decisions about her own body, they “speak” with the full force of their collective presence.
On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion in the United States. Twenty-one states now ban abortion outright or earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, which governed reproductive rights for half a century. The woman’s health care facility in this film no longer offers abortions.
Short Film Award, Mimesis Documentary Festival, 2024
Best Women’s Film, Society for Photographic Education, St. Louis, 2025
Up Next in Health & Wellness
-
Power to Heal
Directed by Charles Burnett and Daniel Loewenthal • Documentary • 2018 • 56 minutes
POWER TO HEAL tells a poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. Central to the story is the tale of how a new national program, Medicare, was u...
-
It Is Not Over Yet
Directed by Louise Detlefsen • Documentary • 2021 • 94 minutes
At the small retirement home Dagmarsminde, the founding nurse May Bjerre Eiby has no interest in specific dementia diagnoses or medicine, since neither is improving the quality of life for the 11 residents. Instead, May and her staff...
-
Stories of A
Directed by Charles Belmont and Marielle Issartel • Documentary • 1973 • 89 minutes
Shot in Paris in 1973, this feminist film on the fight for abortion rights was banned as soon it was released. A large-scale game of hide-and-seek ensued, as activists created an underground distribution network,...
