Sponsored by CrowdTorch
Directed by Ann Fessler
Ann Fessler’s gripping documentary recovers the narratives of unmarried pregnant women in the early 1960s, when the dawn of the sexual revolution was still pretty dark. Lacking sex education and easy access to birth control, women who conceived out of wedlock were forced to go into hiding and afterward “surrender” their children for adoption, holding their experience as a shameful secret, never to be spoken of. Candid accounts detail wrenching experiences against archival footage of educational films and documentaries of the era, suggesting that while coded terms may have been replaced, complex emotions and social and political issues associated with reproductive rights remain.
Film Note Writer: Holly Roach