The production company Barret's team came face to face with the reality of obstetric violence in the midst of producing a documentary about childbirth. It was 2021 and public opinion was debating the Ministry of Equality's proposal to include the term in the new Abortion Law, an idea that was ultimately not achieved. "The debate had become very polarized and we felt that we had to participate and incorporate obstetric violence into the documentary," explains Claudia Reig. The production company had just produced the interactive documentary Birth in the 21st Century, which won a World Press Photo and is still available today on the RTVE website, but this was another side to take into account in the narrative.
Now the story abandons transmedia and becomes a feature film with various aspects in which the testimonies of women hurt by the neglect they suffered during their births resonate with special force. "They didn't tell me anything", "they didn't consult me anything" or "they didn't even look at my face" are some of the phrases that are repeated in the documentary. But it's not that they are repeated, it's that they are said by various women, but coincidentally.
"When we collected the testimonies, we realized that they all said the same thing. There were phrases that were exactly as they were and that left us with a deep feeling of sadness and indignation," explains its director about the results of the call she made on social networks to gather information. testimonials. In that week of July 2021, about 150 women responded.
The film puts a face to women who, until now, have not been able to identify that bad feeling with which they remember the birth of their children and through their stories it weaves a story that seeks to change things. "We want women to be respected, to be listened to," Reig reiterates.
And he does not question the medical decision, as he gives as an example the birth of Alicia, one of the women who participates in the documentary. In her meetings with her midwife, he peppers her with questions and emphasizes her intention to have a natural and non-medicalized birth, but during it the medical recommendations are different and finally her daughter is born by cesarean section. "It is the best example of what it should be. Alicia had another idea, but you see how her midwife explained it to her and she understands it," recalls Claudia Reig.
The documentary includes other realities of respected motherhood, such as the work of the midwives carried out at the La Plana de Vila-real hospital by Soledad Carreguí, who is presented as a fighter for more humane treatment in delivery rooms. . Her dream is to have a Birthing House, a center attached to the hospital that the previous Minister of Health, Miguel Mínguez, announced at the parliamentary headquarters in the Corts Valencianes, as stated in the feature film.
With no release date yet, the project needs a financial boost and that is why it is participating in crodwfunding, still open with the aim of raising up to 6,000 euros. The deadline ends on Thursday and they are about to get it.
