Directed by Jane Gillooly • Documentary • With Leona Gordon, Gerri Santoro, Joyce Carboni • 1995 • 57 minutes
For Geraldine Santoro and so many women like her, the barriers to obtaining a safe, legal abortion were insurmountable and in 1964 the legal and the social system did not protect her. The film LEONA’S SISTER GERRI tells the story of Gerri Santoro, a working-class mother of two and the “real person” in the now famous police photograph of an anonymous woman on a motel floor. She is face down on the floor next to an unmade bed. She had died from an illegal abortion. Reprinted thousands of times on placards and in the media, this tragic photo became a pro-choice icon. Should the media have used this image? What circumstances led to Gerri’s avoidable death? Since the film’s debut in 1995, Leona’s Sister Gerri has been taught as women’s rights canon. The film addresses reproductive justice, domestic violence, and media ethics by tracing the use of an iconic image and how this photograph of Gerri Santoro’s death galvanized the abortion movement.
Up Next in Women's History Month 2026
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Googoosh: Iran's Daughter
Directed by Farhad Zamani • Documentary • 2000 • 158 minutes
Googoosh was Iran's most famous and beloved pop diva, until she was silenced following the 1979 Islamic revolution when female singers were labeled “temptresses” and forbidden to release records or perform publicly in the presence of m...
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It Happens to Us
Directed by Amalie R. Rothschild • Documentary • 1971 • 32 minutes
Made in 1971 when a medically safe legal abortion was available in only one state, "It Happens to Us" was produced to bring to public attention the sometimes shattering, and always difficult, personal situations underlying a woma...
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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,...
