“Jenny” Dr. Directors on the release of the abortion movie “Sad Truth” as Rowe Wade

[The following story contains spoilers from HBO doc The Janes.]

When a draft Supreme Court report was released last month suggesting the court could overturn Roe Wade, the creators of the documentary Underground Abortion Network. JaneThe premiere that aired on HBO on Wednesday night took them by surprise.

This moment reflects the dichotomy that Helmers Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes have experienced during filming in recent years. “This is an in-between place to be fully aware and in disbelief of everything that is going on,” Pildes said. the hollywood reporter.

Jane Producer Daniel Arcana, whose mother was one of the Jane Collective team members on the documentary, began developing the project shortly after the election of former President Donald Trump. “He was a prophet. “He saw, like many others, that he needed to tell this story,” said Lessin. THR.

Pildes, who is also Arcana’s sister, and Lessin began collaborating on the film after hearing the Supreme Court’s confirmation from Bret Cavanaugh. Lessin explains that Cavanaugh, who was tried in court along with fellow Trump nominees Neil Gorsuch and Amy Connie Barrett, “all indicated that he did not expect this world.

“Soon we would be in this country with the same conditions as Jeans in the early 60s and early 70s,” he said. And this political atmosphere over time made the “mostly dramatic” story “illegitimate for ordinary women.” “They were threatened with imprisonment and life imprisonment at a time when abortion was illegal, and it felt like it really meant the moment.”

The film, which premiered at Sundance, contains the first accounts of women at Chicago’s Secret Jane Center helping women with safe, affordable abortions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the procedure was a criminal offense in Illinois and other states. All seven of Jane’s members were arrested and charged with abortion and conspiracy to commit an abortion after a police raid in 1972, but the case was eventually dropped after Rowe Wade legalized abortion nationwide.

Lessin argues that the dangerous status against Rowe Wade has helped some of Jane’s associates open up. “I think Jane’s women, who didn’t want to talk about their experiences in the past, really wanted to talk now because it was at the crossroads of abortion rights in America,” she said.

Talking THR, Lessin and Pildes talk about the challenges of getting votes for women who participated and used Jane, including how they used Jane-like ads to find people; How they hope their film highlights humanity beyond the controversial subject matter; And why the film is largely free of the political arguments surrounding abortion.

Can you imagine when it started working? The from jane That this movie could come out at a time when it could be canceled against Rowe Wade?

Emma Pildes: Nothing we could have done could have been portrayed so accurately on HBO in the same month that Roe was cancelled; that is the sad truth in this cinematic chronicle. Of course, this is amazing in many ways, no matter how scary it all might be. The idea of ​​killing the deer, I think, is not something that hasn’t occurred to us yet, although we know it will definitely happen. We have been working on this film for several years and here we are: superinformed and encouraged by everything that happened in the news cycle, at the Federal Supreme Court and at the state level. It was still quite surprising to see that the decision was leaked just a few weeks ago. You can’t believe this is true. it’s a nightmare

Tell me a little about the process of connecting with different women related to Jane. Are you ready to speak? How did you feel as you reviewed this part of your life? Were there any that were difficult to connect to?

aunt lesin: Unfortunately, many Janes have died in recent years: they were women in the 70’s and 80’s and some were sick. The biggest challenge was hearing her voice during this absence. We got lucky in an interview with Dorothy Fadiman, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, with two great Janes, Jody and Ruth, in 1995 before they died, and she is generous enough to give us this interview.

Most of the other Janes we’ve talked to, and heck, there are more than ten in the movie, were brought in at different times. Of course, Emma and Daniel had a reason to trust these women because they have a family connection to this story, so they really wanted us to do what was right for them and for this story. However, some of them were telling this story for the first time, not only in front of our cameras, but many of them did not even tell their families about their participation in this illegal underground group. So it became very clear to them about the time and their involvement and some of them, many of them personal experiences of abortion in their own lives.

The most difficult challenge was finding women who would benefit from the service because Jane had taken an oath of secrecy and would not share their names with us. We had to do a lot of research and I came up with the idea to place an ad in a local Chicago newspaper. And through this ad we find Dori Baron telling the horrific abortion story to the crowd and then her version of Jane in the movie, which was a completely different experience. We also wanted to talk about the many levels of support Jane had in Chicago: husbands and wives who loaned their apartments, lawyers and doctors who helped her. It was a very community company. It wasn’t just a small group of women. It was a great start for the South Chicago area.

Were there specific people or people who would give you some perspective that you wanted to talk to but couldn’t?

pills: We have a lot of respect for the decision that after 50 years we don’t want to stand in front of the camera and talk about the illegal actions of the 60’s. I don’t know if we want to call on behalf of the people. We got what we needed. Many of them were willing to do so; It was a chorus of voices, some speaking for those who didn’t want to face the camera. I feel good that there were many who were ready: another courage, continue your work in the 60’s and 70’s.

One of the people who died whose part would have been so fantastic, although I think Jane is able to evoke her soul in the film, is a criminal lawyer who helped them when they were devastated. Judith in the film depicts her in her canary-yellow outfit and canary-yellow bag, brilliant mind, cunning, and toughness. People just love him and he’s not even in the movie. I can’t imagine what he would do on screen. It was a loss.

But that’s one of the other reasons why we thought it was so important to make this movie as quickly as possible, because that’s the reality of making documentaries, is that people die and those stories don’t get documented. So we are incredibly lucky and honored that these women are willing to do this and we filmed this extraordinary story about extraordinary women.

One thing that surprised me when I saw the movie: the abortion debate is now so wrapped up not just in politics but also in religious beliefs and people talking about “morality” and “is it murder?” And many of the women in this film were very pragmatic and practical: they felt they were troubled women and wanted to help them. What do you think of the lack of options surrounding the abortion debate?

decrease: They felt a moral obligation, as Jodi says. [in the film], A disrespectful law that respected women. They felt they were on a moral level to support women’s lives and help them make the decisions they made. I believe that there was no infusion of this doctrine at the time of the decision on this medical procedure. Sure, it was stigmatized because sex outside of marriage was stigmatized, but it really happened before the Catholic Church and evangelicals approached the subject with any passion.

And the Clergy Advisory Service, which operated not just in Chicago but across the country, was a network of Jewish and Protestant religious leaders who not only spoke out about abortion rights, but helped women terminate unwanted pregnancies. Janebs. Many Janes came out of the Catholic Church, grew up in the Catholic Church. Many, many of the women they served were Catholic. They were also Jewish women.

They were women of deep principles that emerged from the movement for civil rights, the movement against the war and the student movement, and they were their values: the fight for racial justice, the fight for the unjust war and the fight for the liberation of the humanity. women. The work they did was fully consistent with these values.

What do you hope people take away from this documentary, especially people who may not have strong feelings about it but were inspired by the film? There are some very powerful and impactful stories.

pills: I think we hope people remember that these are real women who are killed and injured when a deer is taken from them. real people. Mothers of other sons, daughters, sisters, co-workers, best friends. Real people are dying. It’s going to be impressive because we see how the criminalization of abortion is shaken because we’ve had this debate for a long time and everyone is working to fight for your side. But now let’s see what it really looks like and is disgusting.

That’s one of the parts of what we wanted to show in the film: from an uncertain point of view, what a country when women have no choice but to be relegated to the background or forced to solve cases. Own hands. We hope to engage humanity in these conversations again and we hope it wakes people up and reminds them that they need to have a voice now and do something to help these women. Whether it’s financially, a street protest or anything else you want to organize, now is the time.