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Program Notes

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A Mile and a Half (5:31), dir. Ray Rea

The border between North Dakota and Minnesota is physically only a narrow river but legislatively a canyon. In the sister city straddling that border a move of a mile and a half saved lives.

Contractions (12:00), dir. Lynne Sachs

In a place where a woman can no longer make decisions about her own body, we listen to an OB-GYN who can no longer perform abortions and a “Jane” who drives patients across state lines while a group of activists perform outside a women’s healthcare clinic.

As Long as We Can (10:30), dir Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

As the Arizona state supreme court hears arguments on whether to reinstate an abortion ban that originated in 1864, we glimpse into the day-to-day activities of this for-now still functioning clinic, one of just two left in the state that provides surgical abortions.

Retracing Our Steps (8:30), dir. Kelly Gallagher

A woman reflects back on her time spent assisting abortion seekers when Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.

The Longest Walk (6:00), dir. Đoan Hoàng Curtis

A filmmaker returns in the wake of Kentucky’s total abortion ban to the site where she had an abortion on her own due to assault at age 13, and finds the male classmate who witnessed the aftermath of her assault decades earlier.

New Work (title tbd), dir. Lynne Sachs 

Sachs works with reproductive justice advocates in Syracuse, NY, finding resonance and dissonance between the region’s history of women’s rights and the struggles of the current moment.

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Accessibility

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Light Work is wheelchair accessible. Films will be captioned and CART services will be provided for the Q&A portion of the event.

To make accommodation requests or ask questions about facilities, please contact info@urbanvideoproject.com or 315-443-2450.

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About the Filmmakers

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Lynne Sachs is an experimental filmmaker and poet working from an avowedly feminist perspective. Her works defy genre, incorporating elements of documentary, performance, and collage into self-reflexive explorations of broader historical experience. Her films have screened at MOMA, Tate Modern, the Wexner Center, and at New York FF, Oberhausen Int’l Short FF, Sundance, Viennale and Doclisboa. Retrospectives have been presented at Museum of the Moving Image and Sheffield Doc/Fest, among others. She has received lifetime achievement awards from Edison Film Festival and Prismatic Ground Film Festival at the Maysles Documentary Center, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts. 

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan makes films about gender, the Latinx community, and representation. Her work has screened at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, HotDocs, the Getty Museum and been broadcast on PBS and the Sundance Channel. Guevara-Flanagan is Associate Professor at UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television where she heads the MFA Directing Documentary concentration. 

Kristy had an abortion while in college that required multiple visits due to complications and is grateful for this abortion which allowed her to graduate from college.

Kelly Gallagher creates work rooted in resistance, struggle, and solidarity. Her award-winning films and animations screen internationally, including at MOMA, SF Cinematheque, the National Gallery of Art, Sundance, Tribeca, and the Smithsonian and have streamed on Netflix and PBS. She organizes inclusive film workshops, camps, and masterclasses for communities all over the country. She is an Associate Professor of Film at Syracuse University. 

Đoan Hoàng is an award-winning director, producer, writer, and oral historian. She made “Oh, Saigon: A War in the Family” about her family’s escape at the end of the Vietnam War. Đoan is at work on “Oh, America: Divided Country” about her family’s second generation political split in America. She has received grants from the NEH and Sundance Institute. Her work has shown around the world, including on Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. Đoan was a US Dept. of State traveling artist in Vietnam and Spain. She is also a trauma healing practitioner. 

 As a teen with very little support, Đoan overcame many obstacles to obtain an abortion at the same clinic where she films decades later — the last left in Kentucky post-Roe.

Raymond Rea is a transmale filmmaker, writer, and rural LGBTQIA youth advocate. His films have screened widely, including at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival (Frameline), BFI, London; Translations, Seattle; Outfest, Los Angeles; Inside Out, Toronto; Union Docs, Brooklyn, ATA, San Francisco; Flex Fest. He was awarded the Lakes Region Arts Council McKnight Fellowship for 2019-20 and founded the F-M LGBT Film Festival. He was a Professor of Film in the School of Media Arts & Design at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. Ray had an abortion in his early 20s, pre-transition.

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Partners

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With the help of partners from the Department of Womens and Gender Studies and the CODE^SHIFT lab in the Newhouse School, both at Syracuse University.

transition.

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Sponsors

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This program is sponsored by the Syracuse University Humanities Center as part of Syracuse Symposium 2024-25: COMMUNITY.

UVP’s programs are made possible with a Tier Three Project Support grant from the County of Onondaga, with the support of County Executive Ryan McMahon and the Onondaga County Legislature, administered by CNY Arts.

       

All Light Work programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.