Central Recorderdance documentary “Aftershock” zeroes in on an issue that until recently had gotten little attention — disparities in America’s maternal health care system.
Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt are the directors. The film follows two fathers who lose their partners due to preventable childbirth complications.
According to the, Black women had a maternal mortality rate of 44 per 100,000 live-births in 2019, which was 2.5 times that for white women. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lewis Lee told Sharon Waxman at ’s Sundance Studio how she first became aware of the disproportionate numbers of preventable deaths of Black mothers and babies.
“Way back in 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asked me to be the spokesperson for their infant mortality awareness raising campaign called ‘A Healthy Baby Begins With You,’”She stated: “That campaign allowed me to travel the country to talk about infant health. At the time, I didn’t know infant mortality was an issue in the United States. I didn’t know that Black babies died in three to four times the rate that white babies do.”
Lewis Lee was also mentioned: “I was able to go and talk to all kinds of stakeholders and discovered that when you talk about infant health, you’re really talking about a woman’s health and that women, especially Black women, were not doing well in this country. And then I talked to lots of groups of women, Black women, who inevitably would tell me a story, someone would tell me a story, about a sister, a friend, a cousin who had died from complications of childbirth.”
Eiselt stated that she was inspired by her own experiences. “traumatic”Experiences during childbirth
“I’m a mom of four and I’ve had I’ve had traumatic birthing experiences and this was something that I was in tune with,” Eiselt said.
“It wasn’t until the end of 2017 when ProPublica released their investigative reporting about the maternal health crisis in a series called ‘Lost Mothers,’ I really understood that this was a national crisis and what I had experienced on an individual level was endemic to Black women and really profoundly affecting communities of color,” Eiselt added.
Eiselt felt a strong pull to make a difference and help people understand the issues. She became a Concordia Studio Fellow, pitched the project and then began to develop the project. Tonya Lewis Lee would be her co-director during one of her first production shoots.
Lewis Lee has strong ties to the movie industry. Spike Lee is her husband and they made the film “Love, Spike Lee”. “Crisis in the Crib”Back in 2010, there was a discussion about the infant death crisis. She was looking for a partner in her followup with Eiselt, as she knew this was a serious issue.
“I wanted to tell it from the perspective of people who really were experiencing the crisis and was really happy to follow a verité style documentary filmmaker so that we can really gather our skills together to make this film,”Lewis Lee.
“Aftershock”Sundance in America will host its world premiere. Documentary Competition. Watch more of Sharon Waxman’s interview with the filmmakers in the video above.
’s Sundance Studio is presented by NFP and National Geographic Documentary Films.