Description:

Reproductive Systems: Gender, Power and Society
Block Cinema continues its year-long series of programs inspired by One Book One Northwestern’s 2018-2019 selection, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, with a selection of films that engage the theme of reproduction. Biological reproduction is at the center of The Handmaid’s Tale, but Atwood’s novel also reflects how systems of education, labor, media and justice function to reproduce social structures across generations. Programmed with the support of the Northwestern Women’s Center, Reproductive Systems brings together documentaries, narratives and experimental films that interrogate these complex structures of social and biological reproduction and their effects on women’s lives.

Birthright: A War Story
(Civia Tamarkin, 2017, USA, digital, 105 min.)
While access to abortion is often front and center in debates around reproductive rights, the matter of choice is just one factor in a broad assault on the privacy and autonomy of women. This searing documentary, described by director Civia Tamarkin as “a real-life Handmaid’s Tale,” provides a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute overview of the “war on women” carried out by right-wing legislators throughout the United States. Anchored in the lived experiences of women whose access to reproductive health has been regulated, restricted, and criminalized, the film builds on these testimonies to paint a shocking picture of the forces shaping women’s health policy in the United States.