Celebrate Midwives and Birth Film Festival

9:15am At Home in Maine (2 Short Films) by Nicolle Littrell

11:00 Midwives’ Panel

12:05pm Home Delivery by Christine Tournadre

1:30pm Mothers’ Panel

2:35pm The Business of Being Born by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein

4:15pm No Woman, No Cry by Christy Turlington Burns

Frontier Cafe, Gallery, Cinema
14 Maine Street
Brunswick, Maine
207-725-5222

To hear the rest of Jennie Joseph’s interview–come the the Celebrate Midwives and Birth Film Festival on Saturday, November 19th. This interview is part of the film “No Woman, No Cry”.

Nicolle Littrell:
“In December of 2004, I had a homebirth with my son Leo in Montville, Maine. It was a powerful, life-changing and transformative experience. Through my birth experience and the support of the professional midwives who attended me, I developed a faith in myself–and birth–that I had never known before. It changed not only my relationship with myself but how I saw the world. Through reading, storytelling and the media, I also became acutely aware that my birth experience was not the one most women in the United States had.

As I learned more about the mainstream maternity system, I came to know that it was under-serving women and their children. Of developed nations, the US ranks 51st in the world in regards to maternal mortality with similarly dismal rankings in regards to infant mortality. In March of this year, the Center for Disease Control reported the national rate of Cesarean Section rose to almost 33%, following a trend of a steady increase in this procedure.

Prior to the birth of my son, I had been working as a filmmaker and educator; after my homebirth experience, I knew I wanted to create a film that would help educate women and their partners about the choice to have a homebirth; that would challenge marginalizing perceptions about this choice and perhaps, be a part of a reproductive justice movement aimed at transforming the way the US sees and does birth.

The project was first conceived as producing one “conventional” documentary film about homebirth in Maine. However, as I delved deeper into the project, I saw that one film would simply not adequately represent the diversity of the people choosing homebirth, the midwives attending these families and the different issues surrounding homebirth. Over three years time, I had produced six short films about homebirth in Maine. With this realization, I shifted the project vision to building on and adding to this body of work and organizing and distributing the films as an educational/advocacy tool and community-building platform.

In addition to this project, I recently graduated with an Interdisciplinary Master’s Degree from the University of Maine (“At Home in Maine” is my Master’s Project) with a specialization in Women’s Studies; New Media and Communication were my secondary disciplines. I live in Belfast, a funky and beautiful town in the mid-coast area which boasts two thriving homebirth midwifery practices!

In my free time I garden, swim, cook, do yoga and romp around with my 6-year old son Leo and my partner, Jim.”

Pregnancy is a death sentence for more than half a million women every year, but their deaths would be preventable if they could obtain the health care they needed. Christy Turlington’s documentary explores the personal stories behind such stunning statistics. The film begins at 4:15pm.  For more information, please visit: http://everymothercounts.org/film.

· At Home in Maine (2 short films) by Nicolle Littrell

The film series will begin at 9:15am

· Home Delivery by Christine Tournadre

The film will begin at 12:05pm

· The Business of Being Born by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein

The film will begin at 2:35pm

· No Woman, No Cry by Christy Turlington Burns

The film will begin at 4:15pm

Frontier Café Cinema Gallery

Brunswick, Maine

Saturday, November 19th, 2011

$7 per film

For show times and ticket sales, please call Frontier: 207-725-5222

Sponsored by:
Birthwise Midwifery School

http://www.birthwisemidwifery.edu

Birth Roots

http://www.ourbirthroots.org

Open Circle Midwifery

http://www.opencirclemidwifery.org/

Red Tent Midwifery

http://www.redtentmidwifery.com/

Northern Sun Family Health Care and Birth Center

http://www.northernsunfamilyhealthcare.com/

This bio of the filmmaker, Christine Tournadre, is taken directly from the Home Delivery website–it can be found at: http://www.homedelivery-themovie.com/

For the last ten years, Christine Tournadre has lived in five different countries and organized her professional activity around Sociology and Cinema.

After a B.A. in Sociology and Film Studies, she teaches French Culture and Cinema at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow. She creates and presides the Festival “Infancia y Tolerancia” in Bogota, Columbia, under the patronage of Unesco. In this context, she produces five short films directed by children from Bogota. In 2004, she decides to follow a formation in film (production, direction, camera, sound, editing) at the New York Film Academy, and at New York University.

Home Delivery  is her first feature film.