rePROFilm Podcast

With special guests “Miso” director Kelly Walker, writer/director/producer Mariah Bess, and actor/producer Alex Sgambati

Asha Dahya speaks with three women behind “Miso,” a short film about a doula-assisted, at-home abortion. The trio talk about how they want “Miso” to be an entrance point for audiences to learn about abortion doulas, abortion pills, and Plan C, the organization that gives people the information they need to safely end their own pregnancies at home. They also chat about combining advocacy and narrative, creating their ideal on-set experience, and their Oscar campaign.

“I knew that I wanted to tell a story about relationships and how people come together through these embodied processes … I wanted to show how a person moves through this moment in their life and how they connect with another person in real time.” — Mariah Bess

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!

Our featured short film this month has got us thinking about family support systems, awkward parental conversations, and how repro rights and health care is actually inextricably linked to all of that.

The short film we’re excited to present in December is called La Macana, directed and written by Maria Mealla. The film follows recently divorced Carmen and Franco who work through their fervent relationship to support their daughter Sol when she gets her period for the first time. Just reading that sentence aloud immediately gives me flashbacks to when I first got my period, and oof it was rough. My parents are so loving and supportive, but the taboos around menstruation and anything “female” related were so tangible, my dad would literally change the channel whenever one of those ads came on TV where you’d see blue liquid being poured onto a pad or a tampon. You know exactly which ones are talking about.

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!

Asha Dahya speaks with Kevin Shane who is the Marketing & Communications Director for an organization called the Male Contraceptive Initiative. He is leading the organization’s advocacy and outreach efforts. This organization is doing some incredibly brilliant and frankly revolutionary things in the contraceptive space for men, or sperm producers, which is the term Kevin will explain more about in the interview. 

Before we get into the episode, think about how birth control completely shifted our lives as women as well as the world economically and revolutionized the power dynamics egg producers have in their families. Of course there is a dark history of racism toward black and Brown women when it comes to early testing of birth control, as well as major pharmaceutical coverups of certain birth control methods becoming dangerous and harmful to women, and this is something we as a country need to acknowledge and rectify with transparency going forward. 

Now if we start to see multiple methods of contraceptives hitting the market in the next few years for men, how will our families and society at large be revolutionized once more, and how will it impact our pursuit for gender equality? To answer all these questions and more, we are thrilled to introduce you to Kevin Shane from the Male Contraceptive Initiative. 

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!

Asha Dahya speaks with “Sweet Potatoes” director Rommel Villa about how he worked with Miramontes’ children to tell his improbable story of invention and resistance.

Please do yourself a favor and RUN, don’t walk, to watch ‘Sweet Potatoes’ during the month of November by heading to reprofilm.org. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our monthly newsletter where you will get each episode of the pod straight to your inbox. 

Be sure to follow @RommelVB on Instagram and Twitter, and see more of his work at his website rommelvillafilms.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!

Asha Dahya chats with Julia VanRooyen, an OB/GYN and sex educator. In this informative conversation, Dr. Julia breaks down the science and policy surrounding sex education in the U.S. 

“We hear again and again and again that giving kids information about sex is going to give them license to have it. That has been studied extensively, and it really is not true.  Studies have shown that abstinence-only sex education does not lower teen pregnancy or birth rates and in fact likely increases it.” — Julia VanRooyen

Mentioned resources: siecus.org, guttmacher.org, and sexeducationcollaborative.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!

In this episode, Asha Dahya interviews Katia Badalian - a multi-talented Russian-American visual artist who directed the short film we’re featuring this month titled ‘Heroines’. 

Ten year-old nina is at the home of her neighbor Regina, Waiting for her mother to pick her up. Regina is a coarse-talking woman, dressed in a sexy outfit while chain-smoking in her kitchen, and perhaps emboldened by Nina’s unresponsiveness, takes the opportunity to give Nina the good old’ sex talk - well her version of it! At first, given Nina’s silence as she listens, we assume as the audience that she doesn’t comprehend some of the details Regina is describing. But a twist at the end makes the viewer see, in a shocking way, that she understands more than we realize. 

‘Heroines’ has just wrapped up a successful 2 year festival run, where it received a lot of peer recognition and acclaim, as Katia shares in our chat. 

Shot in only 2 locations over 8 minutes, relying on sound design and carefully designed visuals to be a key part of the story, ‘Heroines’ is a very different type of sex education film, but one that underscores the need for more dialog to disrupt damaging narratives we are seeing around America today. 

This was such a rich, dynamic and inspiring conversation, and we're thrilled to be sharing it with you all! 

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!

Vol. 8 of the rePRO Periodical Podcast features an interview with “Marcy Learns Something New” director Julia Kennelly.

“(The film) is something you can relate to, even if you are younger, if you feel kind of behind in your journey with sexuality or you feel like there was this expectation that you would know everything about yourself and everything about what you wanted out of sex when actually the culture didn’t ever provide that for you.”
— Julia Kennelly

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!

PLACENTA PÂTÉ 
Tia Salisbury in conversation with Asha Dahya

This month we wanted to switch gears a little and bring some joy and humor to the table. Our feature short film is called ‘Placenta Pâté’, and if you haven’t seen it yet, head to reprofilm.org to watch right after this chat because as you’ll hear, there are some really fascinating insights into the background of this film that will make you appreciate all the hard work, research and passion that goes into making even a short film. 

Our guest today is Tia Salisbury - a multi-award winning writer and director based in the UK. Her live-action shorts have been screened at BAFTA qualifying festivals including 'The London Short Film Festival'. Although COVID was a tumultuous time for the film industry and for parents, for Tia, who is also a mum, it ended up being a rather productive and successful time in her career. She made a comedy short film which won 2 awards, and wrote a comedy series pilot. 

Tia's latest comedy short, 'Placenta Pâté', focuses on new parenting in all its messy chaos, as experienced through the eyes of clashing same-sex mums Libby and Erin, played by Bethan Nash and Georgia Frost. New mother Libby has breastfeeding woes, but when her wife suggests a traditional placenta remedy as the answer, underlying tensions rear their head, and it's not just the kitchen getting messy.

Join Asha Dahya as she speaks with Tia about all things placenta, motherhood, filmmaking, and how sometimes the best way to get your project funded is to annoy the crap out of funders until they give you the money and tell you to, “piss off”. 

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!

Bonus Episode: Why WE’RE Here

Get to know us a little better in this bonus podcast episode: A few members of the rePRO team got together to talk about why we do this work. Hear from co-founders Lela Meadow-Conner and Mallory Martin, podcast host Asha Dahya, programmer Neha Aziz, and copywriter Emily Christensen.   (Recorded prior to June 24, 2022.)

“We're all from all across the country. We're from all different walks of life and different lived experiences, different ages … (we’re in) different parts of our lives. And I think that it’s so important that rePRO never is a singular vision. It is all of us..” — Lela Meadow-Conner

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!

Andrea Raby and Marie Khan in conversation with Asha Dahya

In this bracing conversation, “Undue Burdens” director/producer Andrea Raby and Marie Khan, director of operations for Midwest Access Coalition break down what each of us can do to preserve abortion access and why wearing Handmaid costumes and wielding wire hangers isn’t helpful. 

“We have …  abortion pills. We have practical support funds. We have abortion funds. We have mutual aid organizations. We have radical harm reduction spaces.” — Marie Khan on the structures that are in place now that people didn’t have access to 50+ years ago.

Andrea Raby is a Chicago-based documentary filmmaker and producer whose films have played in festivals across the U.S. Her latest short film “Strikers” is supported by IF/Then Shorts. She was a fellow of the 2019 Double Exposure Film Festival with her short film “Undue Burdens.” Her producing credits include podcast “Love is Not” and short documentary “A Galaxy Sits in the Cracks.” She is currently a co-producer on director Ruth Leitman’s in-progress documentary “No One Asked You.”

Marie J Khan (she/her) came on board with Midwest Access Coalition (MAC) in 2016, a practical support organization assisting and funding abortion seekers traveling for care. As the director of programs, she works closely with partner clinics and hospitals, and is a hotline coordinator providing comprehensive logistical planning, booking, and funding for travel/lodging/childcare/food for MAC clients.  Marie grew up in Southern Wisconsin, in a conservative Christian space. Once she was able to access more reproductive resources and broaden her worldview, she realized she had much to learn. Connecting with her own South Asian community has been critical in her ongoing process of understanding herself. She’s worked exclusively at bars, nonprofits, and public universities, and is thankful for the radical and fearless thinkers who have helped her survive and thrive.

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!