Belly of the Beast
A film by Erika Cohn, Produced by Angela Tucker, Christen Marquez, and Nicole Docta
Filmed over seven years with extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, this Emmy-winning documentary exposes a pattern of illegal sterilizations, modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons.
US | 2020 | 81 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Order No. W201262 |
SYNOPSIS
When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal sterilizations in California’s women’s prisons, they wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes -- from inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations -- primarily targeting women of color. This shocking legal drama captured over 7-years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, demanding attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the United States.
BELLY OF THE BEAST is a co-production of Belly of the Beast LLC, Idle Wild Films Inc., Black Public Media (BPM) and Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
PRESS
"Shocking."
"Whistleblower testimonies, expert commentary and powerful archival footage are well-paced throughout the film and reveal a darker truth when it comes to advocating for the rights of incarcerated people: Those on the frontline are not only fighting bad actors who abuse their power, they are also battling a public that at best does not care and at worst condones it."
"Harrowing."
"A powerful exposé of human rights abuses of women in the criminal justice system."
“Horrifying and fascinating all at once.”
"An exposé of modern-day eugenics in the United States."
"Erika Cohn's follow-up to her multi-award-winning THE JUDGE, tracks down a previously little-known story about enforced—and illegal—sterilization of female inmates in California's correctional facilities."
"Filmmaker Erika Cohn’s BELLY OF THE BEAST tackles a tough subject — the forced sterilization of women inmates at a California prison — with journalistic fire and sensitive artistry."
“It’s like an onion, and you just keep peeling and seeing just layers and layers and layers of systemic injustice on so many intersectional levels...absolutely worth watching for students.”
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Emmy Award for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary
- American Library Association Notable Films for Adults 2022
- 93rd Oscars Shortlist, Best Original Song
- Special Jury Mention, Documentary Feature, Social Impact Media Awards
- Peabody Award Nominee
- Honorable Mention, American Bar Association Silver Gavel Awards
- Best Director, Documentary Feature, Centre Film Festival
- Honorable Mention, Best Feature Documentary Film, Womens Voices Now Film Festival
- Opening Night Film, Human Rights Watch Film Festival
- Opening Night Film, Repro Film Festival
- Mill Valley Film Festival
- Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival
- Athena Film Festival
- Philadelphia Latino Film Festival
- Duluth Superior Film Festival
- rePRO Film Fest
- Vancouver International Black Film Festival
- United Nations Association Film Festival
- Montreal Black Film Festival
- Hawaii International Film Festival
- Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival
- Heartland Film Festival
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Erika Cohn
Erika Cohn is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning director/producer who Variety recognized as one of 2017’s top documentary filmmakers to watch and was featured in DOC NYC’s 2019 “40 Under 40.” Most recently, Erika completed The Judge, a Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated film about the first woman judge appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a courts, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ 2018 Independent Lens series. (10/20)
Angela Tucker
Angela Tucker is a writer, director and Emmy nominated producer who works in narrative and documentary genres. Her directorial work includes “All Skinfolk, Ain’t Kinfolk,”a documentary short which aired PBS’ Reel South about a mayoral election in New Orleans. A Visiting Professor at Tulane University, Tucker was a Sundance Institute Women Filmmakers Initiative Fellow. (10/20)
RELATED LINKS
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Film Website
Information on the film, screenings, and how to get involved
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Facebook
Get updates on the film
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Instagram
Follow the film on Instagram
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Idlewild Films
The film production company founded by BELLY OF THE BEAST director Erika Cohn
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Erika Cohn on Twitter
Director Erika Cohn's stream
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Sister Song
SisterSong is a Southern based, national membership organization; our purpose is to build an effective network of individuals and organizations to improve institutional policies and systems that impact the reproductive lives of marginalized communities.
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Trust Black Women
Trust Black Women is a project of SisterSong created in 2010 to resist racist and sexist anti-abortion billboards that accused Black women of genocide for obtaining abortions. The project has expanded to work with Black-women-led organizations and individual Black women across the US to transform how the country views and treats Black women.
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SPARK Reproductive Justice Now!
SPARK Reproductive Justice Now! is an organization dedicated to building new leadership, change culture, and advance knowledge in Georgia and the South to ensure individuals and communities have resources and power to make sustainable and liberatory decisions about their bodies, gender, sexualities, and lives.
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PROFILED
Profiled knits the stories of mothers of Black and Latino youth murdered by the NYPD into a powerful indictment of racial profiling and police brutality, and places them within a historical context of the roots of racism in the U.S. Some of the victims—Eric Garner, Michael Brown—are now familiar the world over. Others, like Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray, are remembered mostly by family and friends in their New York neighborhoods.
Ranging from the routine harassment of minority students in an affluent Brooklyn neighborhood to the killings and protests in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri, PROFILED bears witness to the racist violence that remains an everyday reality for Black and Latino people in this country. Moving interviews with victims’ family members are juxtaposed with sharply etched analyses by evolutionary biologist, Joseph L.Graves, Jr, (The Race Myth) and civil rights lawyer, Chauniqua D. Young, (Center for Constitutional Rights, Stop and Frisk lawsuit). PROFILED gives us a window on one of the burning issues of our time.
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Ovarian Psycos
Riding at night through streets deemed dangerous in Eastside Los Angeles, the Ovarian Psycos use their bicycles to confront the violence in their lives. At the helm of the crew is founder Xela de la X, a single mother and poet M.C. dedicated to recruiting an unapologetic, misfit crew of women of color. The film intimately chronicles Xela as she struggles to strike a balance between her activism and nine year old daughter Yoli; street artist Andi who is estranged from her family and journeys to become a leader within the crew; and bright eyed recruit Evie, who despite poverty, and the concerns of her protective Salvadoran mother, discovers a newfound confidence.
The film Ovarian Psycos rides along with the Ova’s, exploring the impact of the group’s activism, born of feminist ideals, Indigenous understanding and an urban/hood mentality, on neighborhood women and communities as they confront injustice, racism, and violence, and take back their streets one ride at a time.
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Four Wives – One Man
From Nahid Persson, the filmmaker of the award-winning Prostitution Behind the Veil, comes an intimate portrait of a polygamist family in a rural Iranian village. Persson reveals the intricacies of the relationships between the four wives, their husband, their astoundingly free-spoken mother-in-law and their numerous children. Sometimes humorous and often heartbreaking, this film follows the daily lives of the wives whose situation has turned them into both bitter rivals and co-conspirators against their abusive husband.
Persson’s camera unobtrusively and beautifully captures the range of the family’s interactions – from peaceful, pastoral scenes of a family picnic, to the temporary chaos caused by a broken faucet in the kitchen, to a furtive, whispered conversation between two wives about the latest beating. The women’s work – making bread, weaving carpets, milking and herding the sheep – provide the background to their frank conversations. Avoiding sensationalism and sentimentality, this film provides unique insights into the practice of polygamy and its effect on the women involved.
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