62 Days
A film by Rebecca Haimowitz
62 DAYS is an urgent examination of a growing trend of laws that seek to control a pregnant woman's body.
US | 2017 | 29 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. 171220
SYNOPSIS
62 DAYS is an urgent examination of a growing trend of laws that seek to control a pregnant woman's body. It tells the story of a brain-dead pregnant woman whose family was forced to keep her on life support against their will. Marlise Muñoz was 33 years old and 14 weeks pregnant with her second child when she suffered a pulmonary embolism and was pronounced brain-dead in a hospital in Texas. Marlise had been clear about her end-of-life wishes: she did not want to be on mechanical support under any circumstances. But Marlise was kept alive because of a little-known law that states "a person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment... from a pregnant patient." The film reveals that this is not an anomaly: there are currently 32 states (and counting) with similar or identical pregnancy exclusion policies.
62 DAYS follows the Muñoz family as they journey from private loss, to unwanted media attention, and finally towards activism as they fight to change this law. This timely short film powerfully addresses critical issues surrounding bodily integrity and women's health and needs to be seen by anyone studying or engaged in activism around reproductive rights.
PRESS
"62 Days is a deeply moving and important film that sheds light on these relatively unknown laws and the devastating consequences they have for women like Marlise and their families."
"This short documentary, composed primarily of intimate interviews with the family a year after their long ordeal, exposes the legal webs that restrict end of life decisions for pregnant women."
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Chicago Feminist Film Festival, Audience Award, Best Documentary
- WorldFest Houston, Award Winner
- St. Louis International Film Festival
- Newport Beach Film Festival
- Tallgrass Film Festival
- Sidewalk Film Festival
- Meet the Press Film Festival with AFI
- Rocky Mountain Women’s Festival
- United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF)
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Rebecca Haimowitz
Rebecca Haimowitz is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has screened across the world. She has received support from the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, Chicken & Egg Pictures, the Fledgling Fund, Fork Films, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Harnisch Foundation, the Boone Family Foundation and more. She Directed and Produced 62 DAYS, a documentary about a brain-dead pregnant woman who was forced to remain on life support against her wishes. That film premiered at the inaugural Meet The Press Film Festival with AFI and aired on PBS/World Channel’s Reel South. She is also the Co-Director/Producer of the award-winning feature film MADE IN INDIA, about outsourcing surrogate mothers to India. The film premiered at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in Toronto, won Best Documentary at several film festivals, and aired on PBS in 2012. Rebecca’s work has been featured on PBS Newshour, ABC News, Bitch Magazine,ThinkProgress and more. Rebecca received her MFA in Filmmaking from Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts, where she also worked as a screenwriting Instructor. She is currently an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU. She is committed to creating powerful films that reveal the human side behind timely issues. (08/18)
RELATED LINKS
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Rewire News
The ‘62 Days’ Filmmaker on the Laws That Can Turn a Brain-Dead Pregnant Person Into an ‘Incubator’
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Public Media North Carolina Interview with the Filmmaker
5 Questions for 62 Days Filmmaker
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Texas Observer Review
Documentary Follows a Family’s Fight to Change Texas Law that Turned Brain-Dead Pregnant Woman into an ‘Incubator’
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Official 62 DAYS site
Check out more about the film and the filmmaker
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62 DAYS Facebook Site
Connect with the film on Facebook
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62 DAYS on Twitter
Follow the film on Twitter
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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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