Archival montage, science fiction, and an homage to 70s feminist filmmaking are woven together to form this haunting and lyrical essay film excavating hidden histories of childbirth in the twentieth century. Assembling an extraordinary archive of over 100 educational, industrial, and medical training films (including newly rediscovered Soviet and French childbirth films), The Motherhood Archives inventively untangles the complex, sometimes surprising genealogies of maternal education. Revealing a world of intensive training, rehearsal, and performative preparation for the unknown that is ultimately incommensurate with experience, The Motherhood Archives is a meditation on the maternal body as a site of institutional control, ideological surveillance, medical knowledge, and nationalist state intervention.
 

Introduction by Neda Atanasoski (Feminist Studies)

Post-screening discussion with the filmmaker, Irene Lusztig, and:
Nancy Chen (Anthropology)
Jenny Horne (Film & Digital Media)
Felicity Schaeffer (Feminist Studies)

Reception to follow in Communications 139
 

Presented by the Center for Documentary Arts and Research and the Departments of Anthropology, Feminist Studies, and Film & Digital Media.