Emma Pildes: Last News

woman seeking an illegal abortion. “My first day of learning how to assist was the day I got arrested,” Smith, now 71, told The Post.  But Smith was more concerned about protecting the identities of the women she helped end unwanted pregnancies than facing 110 years in jail on 11 counts of abortion and conspiracy to commit abortion.“We didn’t want the names and telephone numbers of [our clients] to be given to the police,” explained Smith, a Queens native. “So we ripped the cards into pieces and ate all the parts that were relevant.”Smith had joined an underground abortion network called Jane, whose members went by the alias “the Janes.” They covertly terminated more than 11,000 unwanted pregnancies in four years — all while under the threat of retribution from the cops, the mob and the Catholic Church — before getting caught. Now, 40 years later, their story is being told in the HBO documentary “The Janes,” to be released Wednesday.“These were very principled people that came out of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-[Vietnam] war movement, the student movement,” Tia Lessin, who directed the film with Emma Pildes, told The Post.“They were mothers, grandmothers, aunts and students,” added Lessin, the Oscar-nominated creative behind 2008’s “Trouble the Water,” about Hurricane Katrina. “But they were all united by their belief that women should be able to make this choice.” The duo conducted 11 on-camera interviews with the surviving members of Jane — including Heather Booth, who founded the underground abortion ring in 1968.

Shortly after Donald Trump became president of the United States in January 2017, he began stacking federal courts with conservative judges. Realizing what was at stake, the team behind HBO Documentary Films’ abortion documentary The Janes began crafting a story to remind the audience what happened 50 years ago when women didn’t have access to safe and legal abortions.

Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary awards-season event kicks off Sunday at 8 a.m. PT and promises to open up distant lands and even a distant planet—no passport required.

Addie Morfoot Contributor It’s been a good year for several documentary filmmakers who sought and found distribution for independently made projects at major festivals. But for many nonfiction helmers, this year’s festival circuit hasn’t proven to be as fruitful as it once was. Pre-pandemic, streaming services went to film fests to fill their slates, but now with media conglomerates consolidating, brands merging, and Netflix tightening its wallet, film fest documentary shopping sprees have slowed down. On top of mergers and economic unease, there’s been an increase in streamers like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, and Disney either pre-buying docus or commissioning their own nonfiction projects.

Addie Morfoot ContributorFollowing Doc10 Film Festival’s opening night screening of “The Janes” on May 19, several original members The Jane Collective — an underground abortion clinic led by women in the pre-Roe v. Wade era — urged audience members to take to the streets and get focused on protecting women’s reproductive rights, now believed to be at risk with a new Supreme Court ruling in the works.“The fight is not over,” said Marie Leaner, a former Jane. “It’s only just begun.”“The Janes” is one of 10 docus that will screen during the four-day Chicago-based festival.

Addie Morfoot ContributorTia Lessin and Emma Pildes were devastated to learn that the Supreme Court may soon overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion.

Roadside Attractions is taking U.S. distribution rights to Oscar-Nominee Phyllis Nagy’s theatrical feature directorial debut, Call Jane. A theatrical release is planned for the film this year.

Guy Lodge Film CriticIf the Jane Collective has gone under-credited in American women’s rights history over the last half-century, independent cinema is doing its best to make up for lost time. Right on the heels of Phyllis Nagy’s colorful fictionalized drama “Call Jane,” “The Janes” is the second film at this year’s Sundance festival dedicated to the female-staffed, Chicago-based underground service that provided over 11,000 illegal abortions to women in need between 1968 and 1973, at which point Roe v.

Addie Morfoot ContributorThe 35 feature documentaries heading to this year’s Sundance Film Festival address a wide array of issues, including the U.S. maternal-mortality crisis (Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee’s “Aftershock”); the battle over control of women’s bodies (Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes’ “The Janes”); corporate greed (Rory Kennedy’s “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing”); and climate change (Rachel Lears’ “To the End”).But this year’s nonfiction lineup also includes several portrait documentaries: Kanye West (“jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy”), Bill Cosby (“We Need to Talk About Cosby”), Sinéad O’Connor (“Nothing Compares”) and Princess Diana (“The Princess”) are among the many famous and infamous figures being explored.