Women from widely different cultures speak out about giving birth, and about the traumas they have experienced when the birth does not go as expected.
Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business. Compelled to find answers after a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to explore the maternity care system in America
The Business of Being Born
2008
6
Under the shade of a Magnolia tree, a group of pregnant women gathers weekly. Among them is Teresa, an experienced midwife who listens to them attentively. Sitting in a circle, the women reflect on the impending birth of their children and their own emerging roles as mothers.
Tempo d'attesa
2023
6
Le Premier Cri
2007
6
An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.
maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore
2021
5
Featuring experts in their fields and raw and moving footage, this documentary makes a case for increased autonomy in women's choices for childbirth.
O Renascimento do Parto 2
2018
5
To Our Daughter
2018
6
To understand eighteenth-century America through a woman's eyes, historian and author Laurel Thatcher Ulrich spent eight years working through Martha Ballard's massive but cryptic diary. "A Midwife's Tale" chronicles the interwoven stories of two remarkable women: an eighteenth-century midwife and healer and the twentieth-century historian who brought her words to light.
A Midwife's Tale
1998
7
A filmmaker plays with diary-docu and fiction as his camera joins his ventures into a phone dating club. Bored to death, hormones running, and desperately wanting to talk to someone his own age (preferably a girl), he walks into a local phone dating club. Can he hook up with someone? Borrowing the form of a diary-movie, the director unfurls an unpredictable and imaginative look into his own persona. 8mm experimental film by Murakami Kenji, the film that made his name.
Natsu ni umareru
1998
0
Executive Producer Ricki Lake and Filmmaker Abby Epstein follow their landmark documentary,'The Business of Being Born', with an all-new, four part DVD series that continues their provocative and entertaining exploration of the modern maternity care system. Exploration of the maternity care system, including birthing options and celebrity birth stories.
More Business of Being Born
2011
0
Sages et rebelles
2023
10
This cinema-verite-style documentary interweaves the pregnancy and childbirth of a young woman with the lingering death of a cancer patient to comment on the celebration and tragedy of existence. The tenderness and intimacy of the young couple, and the mystery of birth are contrasted with the dignity of a man who faces his death without deception.
Birth and Death
1968
5
The planet’s busiest maternity hospital is located in one of its poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. There, poor women face devastating consequences as their country struggles with reproductive health policy and the politics of conservative Catholic ideologies.
Bayang Ina Mo
2017
6
George Stoney investigates the living conditions, both good and bad, in the rural, segregated South.
All My Babies... A Midwife's Own Story
1953
5
Exploring the revitalization of traditional birthing practices in Indigenous communities across Turtle Island, the film blends personal stories of pregnancy, birth, loss, and renewal, revealing the vast and diverse experiences of women within the life-giving cycle.
What She Carries
0
We follow three women on an emotional and thought-provoking journey as they lend their bodies and carry someone else's child.
For Somebody Else
2020
0
On June 11th, 1997, Philippe Kahn created the first camera phone solution to share pictures instantly on public networks. The impetus for this invention was the birth of Kahn's daughter, when he jerry-rigged a mobile phone with a digital camera and sent photos in real time. In 2016 Time Magazine included Kahn's first camera phone photo in their list of the 100 most influential photos of all time.
1997: The Birth of the Camera Phone
2017
7
"The Hart of London" is an endlessly layered tour de force. It explores life and death, the sense of place and personal displacement, and the intricate aesthetics of representation. It is a personal and spiritual film, marked inevitably by Chambers’s knowledge that he had leukemia. The late American avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage said of Hart, "If I named the five greatest films [ever made], this has got to be one of them." Even this high praise falls short of hyperbole. The Hart of London is at the centre of Chambers’s extraordinary achievement.
The Hart of London
1970
7
The everyday life of midwives unfolds on the threshold where new life is born and life may fade away. The film shows how midwives support couples during pregnancy and birth. It lets us participate in the balancing act between a safe and a perfect birth.
Hebammen – Auf die Welt kommen
2022
0
Enter the world of undisturbed birth as 11 couples share their intimate personal journeys, facing their fears and moving through pain into the ecstasy of birth. Orgasmic Birth poses the ultimate challenge to our cultural myths.
Orgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept Secret
2008
5
The Born at Home documentary explores and uncovers the empowering journey of homebirth, shedding light on the often overlooked and misunderstood option that has transformed lives. Born at Home dives into real stories of women navigating birth trauma and examines how a shift in environment and informed choices can reshape the birthing experience. Wisdom is shared from homebirth families, interwoven with evidence-based information from midwives, medical professionals, doulas, researchers and maternity advocates.
Born at Home
2024
9