April
This award-winning drama from the Venice Film Festival paints a slow-burning, feminist portrait of Georgia, where an obstetrician who performs abortions on the side is held responsible for the death of a newborn.
Nina is the hospital’s top obstetrician, but the abortions she performs provoke anger and contempt, despite being legal. Under pressure, Nina’s control over her life begins to slip through her fingers like blood onto the delivery room floor. A baby is born, but does not breathe and passes away. The father accuses Nina of malpractice, and even the chief physician believes a cesarean would have been the correct procedure. Despite everything, Nina refuses to stop performing abortions, firmly believing she is doing the right thing. “No one wants to perform abortions. But someone has to.”
In 2023, Georgia’s Ministry of Health, against WHO recommendations, made abortions harder to obtain by mandating ultrasounds for those seeking the procedure, restricting it to certain facilities, and maintaining a five-day mandatory waiting period. Director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s film criticises the injustice of this situation and exposes the underlying reason for the restrictions: men’s desire to control women. Slow, surveillance-camera-like shots raise questions about Nina’s looming fate. The film culminates in a single, unbroken take of an abortion lasting over nine minutes, occurring offscreen, hidden from society.
Jaakko Jokinen (translated by Kati Ilomäki)
Trailer
