In These Hands: Black Birth-workers' Project is a documentary film created by women of color for women of color. 

The Problem:

In the U.S. Black women are 3x more likely to die from childbirth or pregnancy-related complications than white women. “We know the primary reasons why: systemic racial inequities and implicit bias,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, April 13, 2021. Most recently in June 2022, Roe vs. Wade was overturned, and bodily autonomy is no longer a human right for women, trans and gender-nonconforming people.

The Solution:

In the creation of this film, three Queer Black filmmakers travel 8,000 miles in a van interviewing Black midwives, doulas, mothers, academic scholars, and leaders in the reproductive justice movement to highlight the significance of ancestry, the importance of listening, and the necessity of choice.

Director's Statement:

"For centuries, Black women have been dismissed. We were used, experimented on, and then, our contributions were erased. You can feel through the screen the fire ignited in the birth work experts we interviewed, as their stories had been silenced for so long. Artistically we are trying to preserve and pay tribute to as many silenced voices while showing how our drive to make a difference doesn’t have to feel like an impossible feat for other storytellers.

In this film, we balance a fine line between honoring the holistic traditional practices passed down for generations and trusting the medical institutions that acquired the scientific advancements we have today from experimenting on enslaved people and non-consenting Black women. We believe in modern science but also know that there is implicit bias and inequities that make birthing life-threatening for Black, Brown, and Indigenous women.

This documentary portrays the warmth, community, spirituality, nature, social justice, and sisterhood--all elements that connect birth workers to life and death. Though some of the history and stories we captured are traumatic and painful, my creative vision is to relay these stories softly. To focus less on the trauma, and more on the unified perseverance and power these women and gender non-conforming individuals share. Birth work is a re-telling of the birthing techniques that have been passed down through oral storytelling. Because Black people have relied on oral anecdotes to pass down our history since slavery, we are intentionally emphasizing its legitimacy as a form of historical archiving.

To capture impressive landscapes as we traveled, we relied on filming via drone. This gave us visually stunning transitions between the different stories of the subjects. We captured interviews, landscapes, self-tape interviews, and video portraits. To avoid relying only on sit-down interviews, we want to incorporate animations when retelling family narratives and history. Inspired by the artistic style animation of documentary films like “Katrina Babies,” “In Our Mother’s Garden” and of Black Renaissance collagist Romare Bearden, we’d like to incorporate animated photography collages. We incorporate family archives such as still photographs, video, and audio provided by the subjects in order to add more visual depth and connection between the viewers and our stories. In order for the information from the interviews to be impactful, we want to rely on instrumental music rather than well-known songs & lyrics. This allows the viewers to make their own emotional reactions to the information received, rather than attaching music with lyrics that we all have our own personal meanings and attachments to.

To push the needle forward and ensure that Black women are listened to, adequate healthcare is accessible, and the stories of these influential birth workers are preserved. We know of the statistics of high mortality. What we want to provide are solutions. Options and choices are back in the hands of birthers."

 - Eva Woolridge