Queer feminist film curation collective Club Des Femmes present a programme of short films on abortion and bodily autonomy in conversation with Silver Press’ new reproductive freedoms anthology After Sex. Working backwards – as reproductive justice access appears to be – from an artist’s film about the Repeal the 8th processions in Republic of Ireland in 2018 to illegal abortions in Australia in the 1930s, the programme of seven short films puts the long history of the feminist struggle for freedom on screen. Combining the exhilaration of protest with reflective immersion, these films show abortion as part of daily life. 

Reproductive justice is visible as ongoing, communal work that crosses lines of gender identity, class and race: a practice both practical. In the words of Ursula K Le Guin, who tells her abortion story in What It Was Like, ‘I beg you to see what it is that we must save, and not to let the bigots and misogynists take it away from us again.’ 

Writers and Club Des Femmes members So Mayer and Ania Ostrowska will introduce the programme and selection of films.

Schedule

Repeal! Procession, dir. Mia Mullarkey, Republic of Ireland 2018, 4 min. 15 sec., digital

Autoficción, dir. Laida Lertxundi, USA / Spain / New Zealand 2020, 14 min., 35mm

Light on a Path, Follow, dir. Elliot Montague, USA 2019, 14 min. 49 sec., digital 4K

The Line, dir. Melisa Resch, USA 2018, 12 min. 14 sec., digital

Abortion Helpline, This is Lisa, dir. Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater & Mike Attie, USA 2019, 13 min., digital

The Journey that Matters: What It Was Like, dir. Arwen Curry, featuring Ursula K. Le Guin, USA 2023, 4 min. 9 sec., digital

One Hundred a Day, dir. Gillian Armstrong, Australia 1973, 8 min., 16mm