Introducing our featured filmmaker: Mia Barnett Apathy Is Not An Option Mia Barnett Mia Barnett (she/her) is a freelance filmmaker and organizer based in Los Angeles with a passion for building community. Mia organizes with Nikkei Progressives, a grassroots activism organization based in Little Tokyo. When did you begin working on ‘Apathy Is Not An [...]

Introducing our featured filmmaker: Aisha Sultan Aisha Sultan Aisha Sultan is an independent filmmaker, nationally syndicated columnist and features writer in St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred publications. Her debut documentary short, "33 and Counting," won the Gold Prize at the WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, Best Documentary at [...]

Introducing our featured filmmaker: Bea Höller ‘Animation is a perfect tool for visualizing sexuality.' Bea Höller Real life prohibited a podcast interview with Bea this month, so we asked her some questions about her career, her process, and what she hopes to achieve with animated shorts. Where did your filmmaking career begin, and what made [...]

NEW FOR '24 Madame Ovary: A Message From Our Team Dear rePROFilm Village, We’re dropping in to wish you all a very happy new year and update you on some fun changes coming to The Periodical as we dive into our fourth year of programming! Like you, we're bracing for the constant negative rhetoric of [...]

Ask an Expert: Reel Talk with Dr. Julia Maternity care in a post-Dobbs environment Dr. Julia Arnold VanRooyen Sarah Joy Byington’s film “Labor + Justice” takes place in a dystopian future where women who “fail” to deliver a living baby are immediately sentenced to death by a grotesque panel of judges. These men (and one [...]

Jahmil Eady’s short film exposes a nearly unfathomable yet routine practice in the treatment of incarcerated pregnant patients in the U.S.: shackling inmates during pregnancy and labor.  “The Bond” tells the story of Aria, a pregnant incarcerated woman who endures this treatment. Most viewers will instinctively understand how humiliating it must be to give birth [...]

a playlist by Eshaana Sheth I started this playlist sometime after I got diagnosed with breast cancer. I’ve always been a writer, so I was devastated by how the trauma and side effects of treatment impacted my ability to write and process details. Journaling was too difficult, so instead I began a playlist to capture [...]

It takes less than three minutes to watch the brilliant short film “Always & Forever,” a devastating commentary on the consequences of forcing children to give birth. Though the film is fictional, it points to reality: An increasing number of states are effectively doing just that to their pregnant teenagers.  Lack of comprehensive sexuality education, [...]

Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome’s, "Long Line of Ladies" is a beautiful and inspiring film that follows a young girl, Ahty, as she prepares for her Ihuk, an empowering ceremony that girls in the Karuk tribe experience after they have their first period. The ceremony involves many tribal members and celebrates entry into womanhood. Intensive [...]

Our resident medical expert Dr. Julia watched “Summer Fridays” and has a few tips for viewers about how to navigate your sexual health care.  Be proactive about your sexual health and minimize your risk of STIs In Blair Baker and Chloe Berk’s short film “Summer Fridays,” we follow Frankie as she visits her gynecologist for [...]

In their docuseries, Timmia and Pere DeRoy tell the story of their IVF journey and the additional challenges they faced as a queer, multiracial couple. Anyone who has gone through the IVF process could likely relate to Timmia and Pere’s struggle to raise the money necessary for even one cycle of IVF. For those not [...]

View this post on Instagram A post shared by rePROFilm (@reprofilm) Jimanekia Eborn is a Queer, Sexual Assault & Trauma Expert, Trauma Media Consultant, and Comprehensive Sex Educator. She is the host of Trauma Queen - a podcast for survivors of assault and our allies. The podcast focuses on uplifting voices in all communities and [...]

“My Year of Dicks,” based on the memoir by Pamela Ribon and directed and animated by Sara Gunnarsdóttir, brilliantly and humorously reveals the inner thoughts of a teenage girl determined to lose her virginity. It’s refreshing to see teenage angst about sex from the perspective of a girl. Much more commonly, we see films about [...]

Talking about consent with Dr. Julia Our resident medical expert Julia Arnold VanRooyen weighs in on how comprehensive sex education can advance the conversation around consent.  The more openly and frequently we talk about consent, the more comfortable everyone will feel expressing both their desires and their reservations. It should be routine to check in [...]

Learn more about how Hollywood negotiates tricky scenes from certified intimacy coordinator Nisha Ahuja (“Never Have I Ever,” “Mayans”).Nisha (she/they) will join Alex Sgambati for a rePROFilm Instagram Live #AskAnExpert conversation at 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ET Feb. 7.{{ vc_btn: title=Follow+%40reprofilm&style=custom&custom_background=%23cc77e0&custom_text=%23ffffff&align=left&link=url%3Ahttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.instagram.com%252Freprofilm%252F }} View this post on Instagram A post shared by rePROFilm (@reprofilm) nisha ahuja [...]

Courtney Hope Therond’s short film “Rehearsal” is engrossing and uncomfortable. In depicting the gray areas around issues of consent, the film provides a great entry point into conversations about this topic.  Discussion Questions Consider a couple of specific scenes from the film:  In the very beginning, Jared tells the actors they are they to block [...]

I think the key to normalizing conversations about periods is to Just Talk About It! I grew up in a household with two brothers and no sisters and menstruation was literally never discussed in my house. Not with my father or brothers, certainly, but not really with my mom either, beyond me telling her awkwardly [...]

The 2022 rePROFilm Gift Guide 🎁 If you’re looking to cut down on clutter and change up your holiday shopping routine, we put together a list of some of our favorite organizations to support. Consider crossing a few gifts off your list by making donations in honor of your nearest and dearest.  National and international [...]

Asha Dahya, the host of the rePROFilm Periodical Podcast, recently launched a Kickstarter campaign in support of her short documentary “Someone You Should Know.” The film features the stories of three women who underwent later abortions with the goal of breaking down stigma and fostering empathy.  “Someone You Know” is about the extraordinary burdens and [...]

The ‘Sweet Genius’ of Agnès Varda & The Pleasure of Female Friendship By Laura Lee Bahr The pleasure of friendship, time-worn and as familiar as a second skin, is the comfort and delight that is Agnès Varda’s “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t” (1977). Varda — a pioneer of the French New Wave, lifelong feminist filmmaker [...]

Mychal Shifrah CD DTI (she/they), is a resident midwife and certified doula. She has been supporting all pregnancy outcomes for over seven years. Mychal is also a sex educator, endometriosis educator, and the creater of slutsoak. You can see what she is up to on Instagram or on her website. As you read this, I [...]

Storyteller Kristen Morley on using virtual reality to tell her abortion story In post-Roe America, educating ourselves about reproductive health care is more important than ever. We need to understand what abortion care is, what it looks like, that unhealthy pregnancies exist, and that abortion care is health care. A 3D version of me was [...]

MY ENDO STORY: A REPRO ORIGINAL ESSAY.By Chloe Quakenbush Poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) was my first diagnosis. I’d been told even at 13 that my body would likely “absorb the tissue naturally” as it would for uterine lining during normal menstruation, and my periods would eventually regulate. That was not the case, as for the [...]