- These are the stories that move us, the stories that guide us, and the stories that reflect our community.

Filmed in our neighborhoods and local haunts by those who call the city home.

These filmmakers are creating stories that show the life of our city in only a way we could imagine.

These are the stories that we tell.

This is "Atlanta On Film".

Welcome back to "Atlanta On Film."

I'm your host, Alechia Reese, and tonight we're going to be watching some pretty compelling films.

In our first film, we will see how birth can be a beautiful yet equally challenging journey.

We are going to take a look at Babyland, where Cabbage Patch kids are born.

All of this is a backdrop to a deeper conversation about pregnancy and childbirth.

This is Kate Hinshaw's "Ten Leaves Dilated."

(timer beeping) - [PA] Cabbage dilation, nine leaves apart.

Nurse Taylor, please scrub.

All vital signs are normal.

Once again, if anyone would like to do a delivery, please go down to the crystal tree.

Cabbage dilation, two leaves apart.

Nurse Taylor to deliver stat.

Delivery staff to the labor.

All staff code green.

- [Speaker] You don't, in the beginning, you don't really feel any different.

Some people say they do, but I felt normal.

And then, you know, later on, as the pregnancy progressed, then I started to feel nauseous and that sort of thing.

It's really surreal.

It is.

You don't know how to feel and you're trying to feel something, so I think a lot of times you talk yourself into thinking that you're feeling such and such because you're pregnant, or you knew that you were pregnant of this.

All of us are born for seven months.

(people chattering) (reel whirring) (upbeat quirky music) - [Interviewee] I mean, fairytales have always been there because they're so adaptable.

I mean, every generation, every time period you have fairytales anew with a different twist.

The fairytales reprocess everything that's important to us as society at a certain time and point.

I think it's a very popular folk belief with the storks, what you tell little children, at least.

Throughout Europe, you find it except for France, and the reason for that being that the storks are migrating and then they don't breed in France, but they're just passing through.

So that might be an explanation why the French have a different tale.

(film reel clicking) (birds twitting) (upbeat playful piano music) ♪ There's a special kind of love no one can match ♪ ♪ You'll find it in the Cabbage Patch ♪ ♪ Cabbage Patch ♪ - [Reporter] An artist by the name of Xavier Roberts thought it would be a good idea to create a work of art one as unique as each kid in the world.

(people chattering) - [Reporter] Shop windows and into people's homes.

Now you may think they're cute and you may think they're ugly.

You may think they're so ugly, they're cute.

- Her nose is a little dirty.

- Yes, that's from being kissed so much.

- [Reporter] Otherwise dignified, calm, mannerly parents broke into a sprint.

- [Field Reporter] Welcome to another holiday shopping season.

- [Presenter] This is Babyland General Hospital.

The place where kid of every color, race, origin, and nearly size is born.

- [Interviewee] It's just odd.

I don't know how to describe it.

You walk in there and there's definitely a smell.

It smells like Cabbage Patch dolls.

And if you've ever smelled one, you know, it's like this baby powder scent.

And there's nurses dressed up, they look like old school nurses.

But when we were checking out, there's this, you know, announcement over the intercom that Mother Cabbage was about to give birth, and the childbirth educator in me was like, wait, what?

- Good afternoon.

How's everyone doing today?

- Fine.

- Good.

Thank you very much.

- Well, I'm Nurse Tammy and I will be assisting Mother Cabbage with this delivery.

Now the little bunny bees that you see flying high above our magical patch, they sprinkle their pollen down over the crystals that caused Mother Cabbage to go into labor.

They also help us to determine the sex of our babies if we wanna deliver boy babies or girl babies.

- [Tester] Today I'm gonna be doing the cabbage gender test.

I've been waiting to do this one because, well, first off, I had to buy a cabbage, I had to go to the grocery store.

So, and typically I do not buy red cabbages.

I know a lot of people do, but I just buy normal cabbages.

So, picking one up today.

(people chattering) (food sizzling) - [Announcer] And we have a baby boy.

- [Reporter] Gender reveal party in Knoxville ends in tragedy.

Police say a woman died during the family celebration this morning.

KCCI's Marcus Macintosh went to Knoxville today to see how the community reacts.

- [Field Reporter] This quickly spread, reaching the Coronado National Forest in Arizona.

- [Nurse] All right.

So the very first thing we do is (indistinct) a large dose of Imagicillin.

Imagicillin still does not hurt or harm Mother Cabbage.

It just helps loosen up her leaves and make for an easier delivery.

Now I'm gonna check to make sure that she is a full 10 leaves apart.

All right, it looks like she is.

That means we're off to a very good start.

Now, the procedure I'll be performing today is called Easy-Otomy.

We're the only hospital in the world that does this, though I'm really not sure why.

She never had any complications and I've never had to perform a C-section before, which for all you newcomers, does stand for a cabbage section here at Babyland.

- [Audience Member] The nurse gave Mother Cabbage an Easy-Otomy, which is, you know, what we would think about is in a episiotomy.

But it's enforcing that to the adults.

Like, I think that like in order to give birth, you know, there's gonna be some trauma there.

There's just gonna be an episiotomy and they're gonna be cut or tear or something, and like, it's unavoidable.

- [Witness] It just seems kind of fabricated.

It seems there ought to be a better way to sell adult to a young girl than watching it come out of a cabbage.

But there must be something to it.

There was lots of people there.

In my mom's days for childbirth, they would put you under.

Now when I was born, I was a breach baby and they went to the hospital.

She was having pains at the hospital and she was in labor for like, 24 hours.

- [Presenter] Soon, your doctor arrived to take charge of things.

He will be following your progress closely now, and first he will examine you to see how far along in labor you are and to check on the baby's position.

- [Speaker] For at least 85 years, women have been birthing in hospitals so at this point, people are just so disconnected from what birth was before that.

The decline happened really quickly to the shift from home birth to hospitals between 1938 and 1955.

So by 1955, I don't think people even knew what midwives were anymore.

They became like a relic of the past.

This idea of something from the old world that is not modern and not up to date, and not, you know, not the way you wanna go.

And I think women lost that connection too to their bodies and the spiritual and mental parts of birthing.

- [Interviewee] I think I didn't realize how official they were until like, I went to a store and saw it in a box and I was like, well, why couldn't I get like a fresh doll?

So I was already comparing my birth experience, like, my baby doll experience.

We've been oversold on medicalization and hospitalization.

I think people are realizing we really don't have to depend on it as much as we do.

Understandably, in emergency situations, it's always good to have that option.

I wanna provide services to moms who typically can't afford a doula, but who know what they want.

So I didn't feel like it was fair for mothers to not be able to have the birth that they desired.

So I decided to follow the path.

- [Speaker] It's one of those things pushed into the public sphere make people look at it and talk about it even though it's not shiny, and pretty, and sexy.

- [Mother] My placenta burst.

In the olden days, I would've died, and then they make immediate C-section and there you were, four pounds, six ounces.

I don't know if you were gonna live or not.

The nurses says it's okay, she's a fighter.

- Mom shared with me.

- My mom.

My mom was not one.

(people chattering) - [Daughter] So that was not my experience at all.

(upbeat playful music) - [Speaker] I like to think that it's changing.

I like to think that people are being more open about their birth stories and just like the female body experience.

(upbeat playful music) - [Daughter] You put me in Cabbage Patch.

Can you talk about the story of putting me in Cabbage Patch?

- [Mother] Well, you were so small and you could buy some preemie clothes and I had a few preemie clothes for you, but some were suggested to buy Cabbage Patch clothes with the same size as preemie clothes.

So someone bought you a couple of Cabbage Patch outfits, and you wore them.

(upbeat playful music) - [Nurse] And here's your bay boy.

(upbeat playful music) - Hello, I am here with Kate, the director for "Ten Leaves Dilated", and this particular film was one that I didn't imagine I'd have such a reaction to.

But before we get into it, can you give us a brief synopsis on what the film is about?

- "Ten Leaves Dilated" explores Cabbage Patch Kids, and myths around childbirth, and the lack of candid discourse around childbirth, particularly in the South and particularly in Georgia.

So it started out with a kind of family story and some familial folklore, and then took on this kind of journey into cabbage and childbirth and what it means to give birth here in Georgia.

- You know, we'll be assisting Mother Cabbage with this delivery.

- As soon as I saw the title of the film, my first question was, why that title?

- So "Ten Leaves Dilated", when you go to Babyland General Hospital, which is where all Cabbage Patch kids are born, the Cabbage Patch folklore, Mother Cabbage when she goes into labor, she's not 10 centimeters dilated, she's 10 leaves dilated, and so nurse or, you know, a nurse kind of comes on the intercom and says, "Mother cabbage is 10 leaves dilated."

And that's how you know it's time for a Cabbage Patch kid to be born.

- So would you say that when you were doing that research that it was something that was more heartbreaking because you learned so many more of the stats than you had anticipated, or would you say it kind of affirmed what your previous research or thoughts were?

- It definitely, you know, you know the stats, you hear the stats.

Stacey Abrams talks about maternal mortality quite a bit here in Georgia, but to actually hear stories from women about just how difficult childbirth can be, it's a very different experience and it can be very heartbreaking.

- Did you visit the Cabbage Patch, what is it, Babyland when you were a child?

- Yes, yeah, I visited the original Babyland General Hospital, and that was kind of the catalyst for the film was a memory of animatronic cabbages and kind of this thing that I thought was really normal.

Like, I thought other kids kind of went to weird toy stores like this, but was explaining this to a friend in Colorado and she was like, "That's really weird."

So that was kind of the first kind of delving into that memory and what that memory meant to me.

- I will say I had never heard of Babyland until your film, and so I wanted to find out, wow, does this traumatize young people, or is it something that's more fascinating than it is traumatizing?

I definitely wanted to ask you what was your experience as a kid beyond, of course, excitement, but as going from, you know, a kid who, oh goodness, I get to see Mother Cabbage deliver a new Cabbage Patch doll to now as an adult, and how it's kind of framed things for you.

- For me as a kid, I don't know if I thought much of it.

I think it's kind of in a lot of ways there for adults are people who have given birth and that's kind of medical terms.

You know, they're kind of meant to go over the kids' heads a little bit.

So, you know, it depends on who you ask.

You know, but childbirth is kind of like that too.

I think for some people it's magical and wonderful and for other people it's traumatic and other folks want nothing to do with it, so I think that's reflective of our culture.

- As we're ending, what I wanted to find out from you is we got much deeper, and I never even thought of the maternal mortality rate when I was watching the film, but that's clearly something that is of utmost importance to you.

So what would you say that you want folks to walk away from, what you want the audience to walk away knowing or learning or even just being excited about or curious about when they watch "Ten Leaves Dilated"?

- Yeah, I mean, I hope that we can have these conversations around childbirth in more public spaces and share our stories more openly.

You know, I am not someone who has a kid.

After making this film, I was like, I think I'm good.

You know, I think it's so important to have these conversations about frankly just what happens in that medical space, right?

Because maternal mortality is, you know, such a huge issue in Georgia, and even beyond that, medical gaslighting and medical racism as well.

So my hope is that folks walk away fascinated by cabbage, but also, you know, recognizing the gravity of what happens when we don't tell these stories and what happens when we don't take childbirth seriously.

- Yeah, and I hope too that it teaches women to loudly advocate for themselves because what should have been a scheduled C-section for me turned into an emergency C-section because my doctor would not listen.

And then now it's an emergency situation where you're afraid I may die or the baby may die, and if I had been more comfortable advocating for myself saying, okay, well if you won't do what I'm asking you to do, sign this paper saying that you're denying me this particular medical assistance.

And usually, that's how you get them to make a move.

But we don't know that, especially if we're not having conversations that tell you what you should do or what your next step or option is.

- For sure.

- So I love this, thank you so much for coming today and also sharing your artistry with us, and also shining a light to ensure that we do start to have more conversations so that we can effectuate change because the only way the world keeps spinning is if we keep mothers living and in good health.

- Yes, for sure.

- So thank you so much for joining me.

- Thank you.

- You're welcome.

(projectors clacking) In this artful experimental film, a mother and son are separated and we get to witness their emotional journey as they find ways to hold onto the hope of being reunited one day.

This is Crystal Jin Kim's, "Young Won Han Bok."

(timer beeping) (gentle sanguine music) (gentle sanguine music continues) Now I'm here with Crystal, filmmaker for "Young Won Han Bok", and I am super excited to get into just everything about this particular film.

I wanna get, first of all, a brief synopsis of what the film is all about.

- So this is a Korean American experimental music video, fashion, art film.

It follows this mother and son and this narrative of their life together, their separation, whether that's different spaces or dimensions, and kind of how they come to terms with it, and mourn it, and hold on to hope to reunite one day.

- That's beautiful.

It's kind of a representation of what love is no matter what dimension or what form it's in.

It doesn't die much like energy.

- Right.

Absolutely.

- What would you say inspired your artistic style when creating the film?

- Hmm, so in creating this project, I was thinking a lot about this North Korean woman in this short documentary I'd watched prior to this, and just her story about her struggles escaping the country, and all the suffering she went through and her separation from her husband and son for decades at that point.

And obviously, that doesn't come through to the viewer watching it, but I think that emotional arc does come through and that was more of what I was thinking about.

We were also just really excited to collaborate.

It was my first time working with the DP, Jin Kim, and with the executive producer, Sam Chun, and just wanted to see how well we could work together, and JJ the lead was creating Han Bok's traditional dress at the time.

All the Han Bok she wears in the film she made herself.

Yeah, and she was learning traditional Korean dance as well, so we just wanted to kind of showcase all of that within this story.

- You know, so when I was watching the film, I noticed how you merged not only the Korean traditional dance and also garb, but how you also integrated a number of like, western imagery in there.

What was the inspiration behind that?

- Yeah, so I am a Korean American artist and filmmaker.

I was born and raised in Georgia, and I'm also always thinking about that Korean American experience or the immigrant American experience, and, you know, obviously just having Korean traditional imagery and western industrial imagery is a very like, stark way to show that.

But I was also thinking about that narrative of separation whether it's between generations of having very different experiences.

- Piecing all of that together sounds like it could have been quite challenging, especially not only the internal battle that you go through, recognizing that this is my culture, this is my heritage, and also this is the place that I've been born and raised and I've lived in, and that combat, that internal strife can be challenging.

- Right.

- So what would you say were some of the challenges in making this short, and then what was it like to overcome a lot of that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So "Young Won Han Bok" was really a joy to make.

I think, you know, it was challenging because we shot this in just two days, and I think it was especially hard on our lead 'cause she was performing these dances and even the dances that are are slower take so much control and so much strength, and I think just scheduling that was challenging.

- And then for you, because you are Korean American, creating something that represents who you are, sometimes there can be challenges that you experience because you have to go back to places that may have been super joyful, but then there's the bittersweet moment of those moments being passed.

So did you have to work through any of that when you were creating the film?

- Yeah, I think the tone of the film is very bittersweet throughout.

I think I'm really drawn to stories where characters struggle to love the people that they love most, and it's usually in family dynamics.

And so that kind of element of mourning, even when you're still with the people you love, I think is always there.

- Yeah, I always like to say the worst goodbye or the goodbyes that you have to say to people who are still living because it's goodbye, but it's not goodbye.

- Right, right.

- So there's a longing there and a pain, and that was definitely evident, especially in the dances and how she was able to tap into those deep emotions to express herself.

Phenomenal job.

- Oh, thank you so much.

- So when you were deciding the pieces, 'cause I know you said you had a lot of content, so when you were deciding which pieces and parts that you would ensure that you showed to the audience, choosing or selecting what those visuals would be, can you explain that process for us?

- Sure.

Yeah.

You know, it was truly very collaborative.

You know, JJ brought all these beautiful dresses that she had worked on, and then I had this arc of, you know, it's their home life together and then it's this sudden separation into this struggle where she's fighting to try to get back to him, and then she comes to terms with it and is mourning but holding onto hope, and he's sending the boats like letters to her and, you know, all of that.

And so there is this through line, right?

And so we worked, you know, from an intuitive space absolutely, and I know that that might sound like, oh, we just felt like doing this or that, but "Young Won Han Bok" really taught me to trust my intuition more, and, you know, to be intentional of course and to do our best to be excellent, but to trust that our intuition is vital for creating art.

- That actually for me was my most pivotal part of the short, when you were watching the male lead send the boats out into the water, it was kind of like sending love, not being sure as to whether or not it would be returned, but still having so much in you that you still had to express it and get it out.

- Right.

- So we all know that art is super subjective.

What I see isn't what you may see, but if you had to define and pick one major thing that you wanted the audience to take away from the film, what would that be?

- I think if there's something I want the viewer to take away, it would be the consideration of people in their lives that they love and care for and maybe have some distance from and what it might be like to cross that distance, reconnect.

- Thank you so much, Crystal, for joining us.

I really enjoyed watching the film "Young Won Han Bok."

I am super appreciative of your time here, so thank you.

- Thank you so much for having me and enjoying the film.

- Yes, you're most welcome.

We've just experienced the hope of familial loss and love.

Now we're going to reflect on the struggles of a community in turmoil.

In "Bad Dream", Camilo Diaz reminds us through poetry what it feels like when the bonds of a community begin to separate.

This is "Bad Dream."

(timer beeping) - [Colby] It's evening, a little rainy, and you're away from home and you decide to go buy some snacks.

Your favorite Skittles and an Arizona ice tea.

You're about to grub with a capital G. You leave that store feeling good.

But then, this ominous feeling overtakes you.

You turn around and there's a large man following you.

You try to run, but you can't lose him.

He just keeps getting closer and closer, and then you feel him at your neck.

And as you turn around, you wake up.

Trayvon Martin didn't.

It's a beautiful day.

The sun is high and the sky is blue and you feel great.

So you decide to go for a run like you've done so many times before.

And then you reach this point where it's almost like autopilot.

Heart racing, exhausted, breathing heavy, exhilarating, but then you hear tires on the pavement.

No, no, these are slow creeping up right behind you.

Stop, stop, we wanna talk to you!

And chills.

You turn around and the man in the back has a gun.

So you run faster, breathe harder, but they catch you.

A shotgun.

Time stops.

Fight or flight.

You wake up.

Ahmaud Arbery didn't.

You're in your apartment relaxing with your boyfriend, recounting your day, something stupid your coworker did, and you laugh.

God, you love it when he smiles.

And then bang, three men burst through the door with guns, time slows down, your boyfriend draws his gun, fires, he's protecting you.

The three men fire back.

You stumble to hide, but you turn to see a gun pointed directly at you.

This is it.

(gunshot cracks) Then you wake up.

Breonna Taylor didn't You're dizzy.

People standing around, phones out, recording you.

Then black hands behind your back, black knee on your neck, black.

You catch a glimpse, it's police, black.

I can't breathe, black, I can't move.

Black mama, black, black, black, black, black!

Right before you suffocate.

You wake up.

George Floyd didn't wake up.

See, for us, this may not be just another bad dream.

Your privilege is that you can trust that you'll wake up.

- Hello, I am here with Camilo Diaz.

The filmmaker for "Bad Dream", and this particular conversation is one that I was incredibly interested in, especially with how you decided to use a poem to tell a story about something that's incredibly painful.

And what you did in this story was extremely unique, so I would love for you to tell us a little bit about not only your role in the film, but how you decided and came up with the concept.

- Yeah, so "Bad Dream", it all started during, you know, COVID, in the middle of COVID 2020.

A lot of the Black Lives Matter protests were happening, and during that time, I have a really good friend, Colby Hollman, who's an actor.

He's out in LA.

So one day he posts this poem on his Instagram and I was like, "Hey Colby, this could perhaps be like, I love the poem.

This could perhaps be like the beginning of something that we could potentially collaborate with."

And he was like, "Yeah, let's do it."

For me as a director, I came into the project as an observer and a listener.

You know, it's like, this was like the first time where I usually write my scripts, they're fictional, and so I was like, no, I am not gonna be the director here.

I'm gonna be the director, but just to make sure that the pieces fit together.

- What was that like because it is something that is incredibly painful because it's loss of life, and even in your way of storytelling, it was one after the other, after the other, after the other so you kind of felt the hits multiple times.

And so when you were directing your actors and you're taking them through, hey, this is what's happening, how did you get them to yes, connect emotionally, but also focus on the message as well?

- So the way it would go is we just sit down and I would talk to my DP, Shauna, and I just after that talk, I would just hit the 60 millimeter camera and I would just say, just stand there and I would just roll the camera for two minutes and in silence.

So that's how I got it to be there because I didn't want anything.

I didn't wanna be like, look happy, look sad, you know, the good old director thing like that.

I felt like having the conversation itself was going to bring out the authentic emotions.

- And too so, in America, there has sometimes been an unspoken tension between Latinx folks and Black folks.

There's kind of like an unspoken tension because if you are, let's say Afro-Cuban, you get to decide whether you want to be Black or whether you want to be white.

For Black folks, there is no choice and so because of that, sometimes it can cause many folks of Hispanic origin not to identify with their African roots or heritage, which is that unspoken tension.

That's where it usually comes from.

So what encouraged you or made you feel even brave enough to tell this story as a young man who is, you know, from Colombia?

So what inspired that?

- It comes back from my inherent, like, as a director, as a filmmaker, I love to absorb things, I love to learn, I love to connect with people, and I already have the established relationships with the other people that are in the film.

So we all knew what we were trying to do with the film.

You know, so like, we all kind of supported each other.

For example, my editor Kai, I came up to him with a project and I was like, "Hey man, the first cut you give it a go, you edit it.

I'm not gonna tell you anything.

I'm not gonna tell you what to do."

- So you left it completely in his hands.

- Yes.

- That's a level of trust.

- Yeah, exactly.

And it's because, you know, he's African American and male and I knew for a fact that he knew how to put it together.

That's where I have to step out as a director.

- That's where the listening comes in.

- Exactly.

- Ah, because it's not necessarily your lived experience so you allowed someone whose lived experience it is to kinda lead in that area.

- Exactly.

- I love that.

And so for those who are listening, if you had to give us a brief synopsis of what "Bad Dream" is, what would that be?

- It is a spoken word piece mixed with documentary footage and more surreal motion picture portraits of the Black experience.

- Thank you so much for joining me and sharing your "Bad Dream" with me, and also being willing to open up an opportunity for folks to listen as well as you have listened.

So thank you so much.

- Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

- You're most welcome.

In "Rebyrth", documentarian Cydney Tucker explores the world of doulas.

Doulas are people who help shepherd pregnant people through a natural birth process in a more holistic way.

Let's learn more together right now.

This is "Rebyrth."

(timer beeping) - What does it mean to create life?

It's like love personified.

Your grandmother was born inside of your great-grandmother.

She grew up, had love and life, and your mom was born inside of your grandmother with all the eggs that she's ever gonna have.

And one of those were you.

All right, so I want you to hold this arm right here.

Yeah.

So January 28th is when I launched Rebirth Wellness, and nothing, crickets.

And I was like, I think I made a mistake.

(laughs) Why would I start a business in the middle of a pandemic?

But I just wanna help people heal.

Black women are dying in childbirth, they're dying before they give birth, they're dying after their baby's already here for ridiculous reasons.

It's completely preventable, and that's what's heartbreaking.

Georgia is one of the top three worst places to give birth in the country.

It shouldn't be like that.

With such a high population of Black people here, we've been here.

Why are we not a priority yet?

That's not okay, especially not in such vulnerable places like giving birth.

That's not a time where I should be feeling stressed.

I should be feeling empowered.

I'd like to empower my clients to speak up and ask questions because the only expert in the room is you because you are the only one that lives in your body.

We are taking birth back as an indigenous practice.

In our tribal past lives, we were the medicine women, we were the shamans.

I'm teaching people about what our ancestors were doing.

Bengkung belly binding, placenta encapsulation, and breath awareness.

When you're in a place of chaos, the only thing that you can control is your breath.

We talk about birth as a heroic journey.

A labyrinth.

(mother breathing heavily) Out through your mouth.

The labyrinth has one way in and one way out.

(mother moaning softly) That's it.

Relax.

Time is standing still.

Nobody else is in there but you.

In through your nose, through all the turns and coils.

Out through your mouth.

I'm still here.

I'm still here.

Come out of the labyrinth.

I'm still here.

Come out the same way.

(baby crying) Did you feel like that was love at first sight?

- Yes, literally.

Like, when people say it's your heartbeat outside of your body, like, this is my heart.

- Your mommy put in the good hard work.

I get no better joy than being there for my moms.

In the middle of a pandemic still, and having people still wanting me to be in these sacred spaces with them, sorry, that makes me happy.

It makes me feel really full.

Sorry.

It gives me joy that they know like, nah, my doula's gonna check in on me.

This is our gift to the world.

(gentle solemn music) - I am super excited to have this conversation with Cydney, the director for "Rebyrth."

We are having this conversation over Zoom, and again, it is such a testament to the power of technology and how we can use it to still connect in really meaningful ways.

So thank you for joining me today.

- Thank you.

- I want to dive right in primarily because this is such a topic that really, really hits close to home in that my own experience bringing a life Earth side was quite traumatic, and I had all these goals, and dreams, and wishes for how it could have gone differently, and in "Rebyrth" you are literally doing your part to help women have a much better experience with the process of bringing forth life.

- Basically, I made "Rebyrth", like at the start of the pandemic, I got pandemic-displaced to Georgia and I was realizing, or I started to see the rate in which a lot of Black women were dying from childbirth.

And I started to do research and I saw that Georgia had one of the highest rates of maternal morbidity, and I thought this is the best time, if any, to do this story.

And, you know, the rising maternal morbidity rates for Black women was something that was, you know, not in a good state even prior to the pandemic occurring.

So this was something that was very important to me, and something that I hadn't personally seen covered.

- So it was literally recognizing that there is a gap in what's being highlighted and what's being shown, and clearly it is its own kinda mini pandemic.

So as you're going through and you're telling these stories and you're learning more about the statistics and what they say, how are you also taking care of you?

Because it is I'm pretty sure heartbreaking to read story after story and to hear case after case.

So what was it like to take care of you while you are also capturing all of this information and content for the film?

- Honestly, being a journalist and working on the types of things that I work on, it's sad to say, but trauma is something that is like, kind of embedded in what I do.

Typically on my films, I have like a trauma support coordinator so like a therapist on set, especially when lots of my films have to do with lots of elements of trauma, or participants like revisiting elements of trauma by resharing their stories and maybe kind of like, just like revisiting events that they maybe haven't visited in a long time that could have an impact on them.

- I love that you're thoughtful in that, especially because, you know, because of the type of work that you do, you might have a little bit more callous skin and not in a bad way.

As in I always say when I say, oh, well, a person has calloused skin, what it means is it's a protective barrier that's necessary in order for them to perform or do their art.

So even though you may have the callouses that you need to be able to operate fully in your gifting, knowing that everyone doesn't have that and being thoughtful in how you're caring for those whose stories you are telling is incredibly kind.

And so with that in mind, when you were deciding to piece together certain parts and share certain stories, what was your vision, especially when it came to the technical aspects of the film with piecing all of the stories together?

What was that for you?

- Honestly, I just knew that I needed the participants to feel safe and secure in not only sharing their stories, but revisiting elements of childbirth that could be beautiful but also very intimate, right?

I think what's interesting about, you know, the medical industrial complex is that it takes something that is so intimate and it commercializes it and it makes it very cold and kind of removed, but that's the power of these birth care workers that are kind of bringing everything back to the home, bringing it back to the roots, like ancestral roots of doing birth care work and like, working with a community to like, bring another life into this space.

What's really beautiful is that actually, Amani comes from a long lineage of Black birth care workers.

Her grandmother was a midwife, as well as her great aunt was a midwife.

Her great aunt was one of the first midwives in the state actually within the country.

There's a monument resurrected in Savannah, Georgia to her great aunt.

She was one of the ones who was forced to stop providing birth care work once it became commercialized by the medical industrial complex, and they decided that they could make a profit from forcing people to come into hospitals to give birth.

- Yeah, you can literally feel your passion through this screen as you're speaking about why you do what you do.

- Thanks, Alechia.

- You are welcome.

I love it.

This type of energy, you can't buy it, you can't fake it.

It is or it isn't, and so in keeping up with what you are looking and desiring to communicate, if you had to, or if you could pick one thing that you would want audiences and viewers of the film to walk away with, what would that be?

- Lending your voice.

Letting people know that Black women are dying.

There's no reason that with all the technology, all the infrastructure, all the money that the US has, that anybody should be dying from childbirth in 2023 going on 2024.

The systems that are in place can be reconfigured to accommodate Black and brown bodies, basically any non-white bodies, right?

We need spaces that, you know, encourage growth within multiple industries, and the medical industrial complex is definitely one of them.

You know, everything is interconnected as well because with abortion rollbacks, this is a guaranteed death sentence for a lot of women.

If they're unable to have abortions and then people are not giving them adequate birth care, then you're literally signing someone up to die.

There are lives on the line.

So just educate others, educate yourself, and, you know, watch the film and support natural birth care workers like Amani.

- Thank you so so much for sharing this story.

- Thank you.

- To continue and watch more films like this, make sure you are joining us at Atlanta on Film at WABE.org.

(projectors clacking) Wow, these films really took it there.

If you're still internalizing, that's okay.

I am too.

But make sure you join us next week when we watch another collection of really impactful films.

I'm your host, Alechia Reese.

Stay tuned for more "Atlanta on Film."

(upbeat dramatic music) - [Voiceover] WABE.