Childless

CHILDLESS will tell personal stories portraying the traumatic experience of one-third of women around the world. Female protagonists from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, France and the USA will break the stigmas and silence around miscarriage, infertility, wanted or unwanted abortion and stillbirth. While the live-action segments share real-life tales of women's chronicles, animation will intertwine surreal and abstract visuals, drawing parallels and providing a space for the viewer to reflect and read into the footage. Central to the narrative is a recurring animated character, repressing the "every woman", evolving and maturing throughout the story. Against a backdrop of apparently abstract landscapes the interconnectedness of women's stories unfolds within a metaphorical body, gradually coming into focus as animation progresses. As each woman shares her journey, we witness the body's transformation, mirroring their collective healing process.

Director’s statement
We are two women directors united by the common trauma of losing a pregnancy. The reasons for doing this might be very personal, but the topics we are tackling go beyond personal dramas. One in three women in the world faced abortion, child loss or infertility. We seek to empower women around the world to open up and talk about their bodies, their traumas, their perspectives on femininity and women’s roles and rights in our contemporary societies that are far from being safe from intrusion and limitations. On the contrary, it feels like we are entering a spiral of global oppression of women's rights we thought impossible just a decade ago. Who would have believed that half of US states will ban abortion, a ban that it is now expanding to in-vitro insemination procedures? That political parties in Poland would call for ban of voting rights for women or that the French Parliament would have to include abortion rights in the constitution in fear of potential far-right impulses? Art Director: Martina Scarpelli (Italy/Denmark).