rePROFilm Podcast

Welcome to this special rePROFilm mini podcast episode, as part of our ‘Films for Thought’ partnership with WISP - a company that specializes in female-focused online reproduction and sexual health treatment. We’ve partnered with WISP to present a repro health movie night on college campuses across the US. At RePROFilm we believe in conversation and filmmaking as a vehicle for sparking change, and I’m so excited to be presenting these interviews with some brilliant filmmakers.

Sindha Agha is  the director of ‘Birth Control Your Own Adventure' and is a stop-motion short film featuring Icelandic sheep, clumsy endives and an OB-GYN who talks with the voice of a robot. Sindha uses these creative tools to chronicle her struggle with the side effects of birth control medication, where she was often forced to choose between depression and physical pain.

Sindha is a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated director & writer working in film & TV. "Birth Control Your Own Adventure" was distributed by THE NEW YORK TIMES. This was Sindha’s first film, which also went viral with 12.5 million organic views and was nominated for a 2019 News & Documentary Emmy. Ya know, no big deal! Most recently, Sindha wrote & directed the BAFTA-winning comedy series “How to Be a Person”, shown on CHANNEL 4 in the UK. Her work as a writer, producer and director has been seen on Netflix, BBC, The New Yorker, Vox, The Atlantic, MTV and more.

- Watch Birth Control Your Own Adventure for free: reprofilm.org/wisp-films-for-thought
- Learn more about WISP: hellowisp.com
- Sign up for rePROFilm's Periodical: reprofilm.org

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

Welcome to this special rePROFilm mini podcast episode, as part of our ‘Films for Thought’ partnership with WISP - a company that specializes in female-focused online reproduction and sexual health treatment. We’ve partnered with WISP to present a repro health movie night on college campuses across the US. At RePROFilm we believe in conversation and filmmaking as a vehicle for sparking change, and I’m so excited to be presenting these interviews with some brilliant filmmakers.

Aurora Brachman & Jessie Zinn directed the brilliant short film ‘The Gallery that Destroys All Shame’. The film documents a group of women who gather one night in Los Angeles to hear from two sex educators, Pamela and Mychal, who teach the women how to overcome shame and stigma around their bodies, and in particular their vulvas, in a workshop titled ‘Take Back the Speculum’.

Aurora Brachman is an award-winning documentary director and cinematographer. Her films explore narratives of intimate relationships within families and communities. Aurora primarily makes work about the experiences of Black, brown, and Queer people and is committed to collaborative and ethical storytelling.

Jessie Zinn is an award-winning director from Cape Town, South Africa. Her work often stems from ideas surrounding girlhood, and coming-of-age stories.

- Watch The Gallery that Destroys All Shame for free: https://www.reprofilm.org/wisp-films-for-thought
- Learn more about WISP: https://hellowisp.com
- Sign up for rePROFilm's Periodical: https://reprofilm.org

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

I know I’m a badass. I do a lot of good things. But I can’t change the mindset of a racist, 50-year-old white cardiologist. What I can do is teach Black women how to care for themselves and to demand the care they deserve (from their doctors).” — Ricki Fairley 

Ricki Fairley survived an aggressive form of breast cancer. Then she turned her attention to advocating for other Black women, who are 41% more likely to die from the disease than their white counterparts. She founded Touch, the Black Breast Cancer Alliance, to address the inequities she discovered in cancer treatment and research, including the relative lack of Black women who participated in clinical trials. Over the past year Touch has registered almost 14,000 Black women in clinical trials — in other words, this woman means business. In this episode of the Periodical Podcast, Fairley speaks with host Asha Dahya about her personal story and how she continues to disrupt the landscape of cancer treatment. 

• TouchBBCA.org
• BlackDoctor.org / Facebook.com/BlackDoctor.org
• For The Love of My Gurls
• Breastie Love

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

The “work wives” behind the dark comedy “Always & Forever” join Asha Dahya on the Periodical Podcast to chat about collaboration, going viral, and how humor is a secret weapon in the fight for reproductive justice. 

“It's just a proven concept at this point that comedy disrupts the status quo. A little bit of humor, a little bit of entertainment moves the needle. It works.” — Lara Everly

“Humor sneaks past people's defenses. It can be a way (in), even for people who agree but might feel like other serious videos feel medicinal … You get them laughing, you get them engaged, and then you come in with the punch at the end.” — Jessica Stamen

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

On this month’s episode of the Periodical Podcast, Asha Dahya speaks with the “Long Line of Ladies” co-directors about “a different kind of filmmaking” driven by listening, collaboration, and representation — the non-performative kind.  

After making the Oscar-winning short “Period. End of Sentence.,” Zehtabchi wanted to tell a stigma-free story about periods. That led her to researching tribal traditions and ultimately partnering with Tome, an indigenous filmmaker who skipped her own coming-of-age ceremony. To make their film, they established “complete and utter trust” — with each other, but also with the Allens, the Karuk family at the center of the film. 

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

The “Who Gets to Parent?” creators join Asha Dahya on the rePROFilm Periodical Podcast to discuss their parenthood story and how they combined storytelling and research to create their documentary series. They also discuss the life-changing power of community building, the blessing of a family ally, and what it’s like to be queer parents who live in Kansas. A truly moving and inspiring conversation — one of our favorites. 

“We started pouring so much more love into each other and patience into each other because we realized how alone we were on this journey.” — Pere DeRoy

• For our Vol. 17 Periodical, we’re sharing Episode 2, “Why IVF?,” and Episode 4, “IVF Check #1/Racism and Physicians.”
• WhoGetsToParent.com

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

The idea for “Simone” came to writer-director Aisha Amin after countless hours on public transit observing parents and other caretakers struggling with young children. For our Vol. 16 Periodical Podcast, Asha Dahya speaks with Amin about how she developed the title character in collaboration with actress Cree McClellan, a single mother herself. 

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

Periodical Podcast host Asha Dahya chats with “Counterfeit Kunkoo” writer/director Reema Maya Sengupta about how her mother’s struggle to find housing as a single woman inspired her to write a “very angry script.” In a lovely full-circle moment, Reema’s mom served as the producer of the film and helped secure many of the set locations in the Mumbai slum where she grew up. 

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

Welcome to our March episode of the rePROFilm podcast. It’s Women’s History Month, and it’s also Oscars month, and we are SO excited to speak with two Academy Award-nominated filmmakers in this episode! 

Our theme this month is virginity - the conversations we have about it, the cultural taboos, the societal expectations, the ridiculous gender expectations, and why, when it comes to sexuality and youth, focusing on healthy communication rather than shame or fear-based messaging, is perhaps a better way forward. 

And what a better and more effective way to share messaging, than in film. In this month’s rePRO Periodical we are highlighting a short film called ‘My Year of Dicks’, which is an Academy Award contender for Best Short Animated Film, written and created by Pamela Ribon and directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir. 

It’s based on Pamela’s 2014 memoir, “Notes to Boys (and Other Things I Shouldn’t Share in Public)” which documents her resolution to lose her virginity as a 15-year-old in 1991 while growing up on the outskirts of Houston. The film is broken down into 5 chapters and five different awkward sexual encounters, with some kinda douchey guys. Style-wise, it’s giving me 90’s MTV vibes - with a moody, grunge soundtrack, a mixture of real film footage of a teenage Pamela, and some bold yet sensitive animation from Sara. 

Now if you aren’t familiar with the names Pamela Ribon and Sara Gunnarsdóttir, you definitely know their work. Pamela is a writer, best known for her work on Disney’s Moana and Ralph Breaks the Internet. She’s a best-selling novelist, and co-host of the podcast Listen To Sassy, a weekly deep-dive through every issue of Sassy Magazine. 

Sara is a director and artist from Iceland who has created animation, music videos, and original artwork for film and television, including Marielle Heller’s debut feature “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” and HBO’s Emmy-nominated “The Case Against Adnan Sayed.” She is one of 3 Icelandic artists nominated in various categories at the Academy Awards this year, and in keeping with Women’s History Month, Sara is the first Icelandic female director to be nominated for an Oscar! 

We hope you will enjoy this conversation filled with sexual innuendos, lots of giggles, and a powerful conversation about how we dismantle harmful ideas around virginity. Take a listen to our interview! 

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!

REHEARSAL with special guest Courtney Hope Thérond

The “Rehearsal” writer/director talks to Asha Dahya on the Periodical Podcast about how her own on-set experiences inspired her short film. Maybe if she could demonstrate how intimacy scenes can go awry, she thought, others might understand how problems can arise even between people who trust, care for, and respect each other. Tune in to find out how audiences reacted.

Support the show

Learn more at reprofilm.org or follow us at @reprofilm. The rePROFilm Podcast is executive produced by mamafilm. Looking forward to bringing you our next conversation!