Women’s Studies

Surge is about the record number of first-time female candidates who ran, won and upended politics in the historic, barrier breaking 2018 midterm elections. The film follows three candidates in Texas, Indiana and Illinois who were running in uphill battles to flip their deep red districts to blue, including Lauren Underwood, the youngest Black woman to ever be elected to Congress. Surge reflects on what drove women to disrupt the idea of what elected leaders look like and shows the importance of creating a pipeline of diverse, female candidates. Viewers see the challenges and triumphs of building grassroots campaigns and through it all Surge asks, is this a moment or a movement?

I’m Doing My Job follows 6 young, female South Asian & Black emergency medical physicians’ lives throughout the pandemic in NYC.

These women are giving birth, watching newborns without outside help, and rising up as leaders at their hospitals, all at once. Some of their families are pressuring them to abandon their careers so they can focus on family, while others are cheering them on. All of these intelligent, courageous, and flawed women show up for their communities when it matters most, exposing the beauty of BIPOC daughters of immigrants coming into their power. Through their stories, we can examine the intersection of motherhood and burgeoning careers, and see that true leadership requires delving into our deepest vulnerabilities.

PICTURE A SCIENTIST is a feature-length documentary film chronicling the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. A biologist, a chemist and a geologist lead viewers on a journey deep into their own experiences in the sciences, overcoming brutal harassment, institutional discrimination, and years of subtle slights to revolutionize the culture of science. From cramped laboratories to spectacular field sites, we also encounter scientific luminaries who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all.

Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself) examines racial, economic and class issues in contemporary American education in this multipart unscripted documentary series. Poignant and funny, epic and intimate, America to Me spends an academic year at Chicagoland’s elite Oak Park and River Forest High School, allowing its students, families, faculty and administration to tell stories of the pressures and challenges teens face in their own words.

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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 alongside Chavez, becoming one of the most defiant feminists of the twentieth century—and she continues the fight to this day, at 87. With intimate and unprecedented access to this intensely private mother to eleven, the film reveals the raw, personal stakes involved in committing one’s life to social change.

Girl Rising has exploded into a global movement and social media phenomenon. Since the original film came out, the film has unlocked resources for girls’ education and has reached millions of people. The Fifth Anniversary Edition commemorates the stories of nine incredible girls whose lives have been affected by the power of education. The updated film features new research on girl’s education, video updates on the girls, and videos from the Girl Rising movement featuring students, teachers, and community leaders taking action for girls’ education. Renowned actor and girls’ education advocate David Oyelowo narrates this Fifth Anniversary Edition.

Battleground is an urgently timely window into the intersection of abortion and politics in America, following three women who lead formidable anti-abortion organizations to witness the enormous influence they wield. As the nation faces the end of Roe, the film also depicts those on the front lines of the fierce fight to maintain access.

The 8th traces Ireland’s campaign to remove the 8th Amendment – a constitutional ban on abortion. It shows a country’s transformation from a conservative state in thrall to the Catholic church to a more liberal secular society. This dramatic story is underscored by a vivid exploration of the wrenching failures that led to this defining moment in Irish history. An urgent narrative, a cautionary tale and a roadmap for progressive reforms in a modern era where authoritarianism is on the rise, The 8th shows a country forging a new progressive path when reproductive rights are threatened all over the world.

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.

U.S. abortion clinics are fighting to survive. Since 2010, hundreds of laws regulating abortion clinics have been passed by conservative state legislatures, particularly in the south. These restrictions, known as TRAP laws (or Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers) are spreading across America.
Faced with increased costs of compliance and the alarming fear of violence from protestors, the stakes for the women and men on the frontlines couldn’t be any higher. As the battle heads to the U.S. Supreme Court, TRAPPED follows the struggles of the clinic workers and lawyers fighting to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women.

From the Academy Award-nominated filmmaking team behind THE INVISIBLE WAR, comes a startling exposé of sexual assault on U.S. campuses, institutional cover-ups and the brutal social toll on victims and their families.
Weaving together verite footage and first-person testimonials, the film follows survivors as they pursue their education and legal justice, despite harsh retaliation, harassment, and pushback.

At the age of 85, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But without a definitive Ginsburg biography, the unique personal journey of this diminutive, quiet warrior’s rise to the nation’s highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans – until now. RBG is a revelatory documentary exploring Ginsburg’s exceptional life and career from Betsy West and Julie Cohen.

How does a person with three strikes against her rise to the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court? How did this happen despite closed doors and legal and social barriers facing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 1950’s? Who made this possible? What personal, social and political forces intersected to make this happen? The film tells the improbable story of how Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who couldn’t get a job despite graduating at the top of her law school class and making Law Review at Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. It reveals both the public and private sides of a resilient, resourceful woman who survived the hostility of the male universe of government and law to become a revered Justice and icon for gender equality and human rights.

A group of innocent people is charged with human trafficking and thrown into prison. The authorities announce they’ve dealt a blow to organised crime; the public is reassured. Tempestad is a road movie: 2000 kilometres by bus from Matamoros to Cancún, through a blustery, overcast, bleak country. In her second feature documentary, Tatiana Huezo has a young mother recount her journey through hell: innocent, robbed of her liberty, she’s handed over to those for whom she’s being made to atone – in a private prison controlled by the Gulf Cartel.

Ayed Morrar, an unlikely community organizer, unites Palestinians from all political factions and Israelis to save his village from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier. Victory seems improbable until his 15-year-old daughter, Iltezam, launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to the front lines. Struggling side by side, father and daughter unleash an inspiring, yet little-known, movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is still gaining ground today. In an action-filled documentary chronicling this movement from its infancy, Budrus shines a light on people who choose nonviolence to confront a threat.

CODE exposes the dearth of American female and minority software engineers and explores the reasons for this gender gap, raising the question: What would society gain from having more women and minorities in the tech industry, and how do we get there?
Tech jobs are growing three times faster than our colleges are producing computer science graduates. By 2020, there will be one million unfilled software engineering jobs in the USA.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, based on the widely acclaimed book by Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn was filmed in 10 countries and follows Kristof, WuDunn, and celebrity activists America Ferrera, Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union, and Olivia Wilde on a journey to tell the stories of inspiring, courageous individuals. Across the globe oppression is being confronted, and real meaningful solutions are being fashioned through health care, education, and economic empowerment for women and girls.

This celebrated documentary tells the dramatic success story of the women’s peace movement of Liberia, where Christian and Muslim women banded together to end their country’s civil war. Leymah Gbowee, the central figure in the film, and the Women of Liberia are the recipients of the 2009 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award™.

Casualties of war rage beyond the battlefield. As ranks of women in the American military swell, so do incidents of rape. An estimated 30 percent of servicewomen and at least 1 percent of servicemen are sexually assaulted during their enlistment, not by the enemy, but at the hands of fellow soldiers. With stark clarity and escalating revelations, The Invisible War exposes a rape epidemic in the armed forces, investigating the institutions that perpetuate it as well as its profound personal and social consequences.

Filmmaker Paula James Martinez travels across the United States to understand what makes it the most dangerous and expensive nation to give birth in. From heartbreaking personal stories and harrowing facts to perspectives of experts both in the medical and legal fields, BORN FREE shines a light on the true cost of giving birth in the US.

The film invites every American to start a conversation about the state of maternal health.