Film List

The following films have all been released to be shown at the BABY! International Film Festival in any location. If you are interested in screening any of these films, click here.

In this list of topics and films, we have the opportunity to custom make a festival with topics that interest your organization and community:

What Babies Want
RT 58min.

What Babies Want is an award-winning documentary film that explores the profoundly important and sacred opportunity we have in bringing children into the world. Filled with captivating stories and infused with Noah Wyle’s warmth as narrator, the film demonstrates how life patterns are established at birth and before. The documentary includes groundbreaking information on early development as well as appearances by the real experts: babies and families.

Debby Takikawa, Producer/Director

Baby-Led Breastfeeding
RT 16min

Kittie Frantz RN, and Christina Smillie, MD — long time experts in the field of breastfeeding — created this film to provide us with the baby’s perspective. She stimulates us to think about the secret drives of the infant in this intimate relationship between mother and infant.

Kittie Frantz, RN; Christina Smillie, MD Producers

Breast Is Best
RT 35min

In response to a decline in the number of women who breastfed their babies, the Norwegian government promoted this inspiring, informational video, and Norway’s society has reaped the benefits. Norway now has over 80% breastfeeding success.

Direction and script: Gro Nylander
Health Info  / P.O. Box 5058
Majorstua  /  Oslo, Norway

Delivery Self-attachment
RT 6min

Babies are able to do amazing things if allowed to be born with out interference!

Produced by Dr Lennart Righard and Kittie Frantz

Pockets

Produced and art by Sophie Mead

The spirited journey through motherhood is told in this animated story, which begins with a woman and a pocket-less dress.

Hug you Baby
RT 30 min

Babies DO "talk" to us, but with their body and behavior. Read your baby's body language to prevent and solve problems with baby's crying, eating, sleeping and parent-child bonding.

Jan Tedder, RN

Nappy Free
RT 30 min

Nappy Free! a thirty minute DVD produced in Australia, explores a method of baby hygiene called "elimination communication," which can reduce or remove the need for nappies (cloth or disposable, and all the potential allergens and environmental costs they carry), depending how intensively the babies' caregivers practice it.

Moore Pictures

Bringin' in Da Spirit
RT 60 min

Through the use of first person narrative and rare archival images, this documentary provides a moving glimpse of the women who have skillfully brought scores of children across the threshold of existence. Narrated by Phylicia Rashad, this evocative and passionate film celebrates women who have committed themselves to holistic answers amidst poweful misconceptions about the practice of midwifery and virulent opposition from practitioners of Western medicine.

Third World Newsreel

All My Babies
RT 79 min

This beautiful film is the story of "Miss Mary" Coley, an African-American midwife more than half a century ago in rural Georgia. Conceived as a demonstration film for illiterate "granny" midwives, its production sponsored by the Georgia Department of Public Health, All My Babies quickly transcended its initial purpose. It was used around the world by UNESCO and has become an enduring classic of non-fiction film. All My Babies was written, produced and directed by George C. Stoney in close collaboration with Mrs. Coley as well as with local public health doctors and nurses and shows the preparation for and home delivery of healthy babies in both relatively good and bad rural conditions among black families at that time.

Produced by George Stony

Birthday
el Nacimiento de su Bebe
RT 11min

This favorite short birth video, beloved by parents, childbirth educators and midwives, captures the beauty of a homebirth filmed in the countryside of Xalapa, Mexico. Narrated by mother and midwife, Naoli Vinaver.

Diana Paul, Producer/Director

Birth As We Know It
RT 20min.

This groundbreaking new film is aimed at illuminating future parents on the impact of conscious conception, pregnancy and birth. In this stunningly beautiful video, Director Elena Tonetti-Vladimirova shares her experiences as one of the co-creators of the “Conscious Birth” movement in Russia during the early 1980’s.

Elena Tonetti, Director

Birth of Sabine
RT 10min

Sabine’s video shows us the excitement and anticipation of a mom’s first pregnancy. The story follows Stephanie and James from the positive pregnancy test, prenatal visits with their midwife, a belly cast, to the unexpected surprise of her water breaking days before labor begins. This is how one family navigates the ins and outs of pregnancy, labor and birth.

James Westby Andaluz Waterbirth Center

The Big Stretch
RT 60 min

THE BIG STRETCH is a DVD produced by Alieta Belle and Jenny Blyth that presents a fresh insight into the amazing journey each woman takes in becoming a mother. Women in different stages of pregnancy and preparing for a natural birth reflect on how they ‘stretched’ in everyway - emotionally, physically and spiritually. You are invited to become intimately engaged, share in the transformation, and follow their stories to the first moments and days after birth. Topics explored: breath awareness, pain and the intensity of birth, vaginal and body awareness, women’s challenges, asking for help, relationship and personal transformation.

Orgasmic Birth
Rt 85 min

Orgasmic Birth is a documentary that examines the intimate nature of birth, an everyday miracle, and the powerful role it plays in women’s lives when they are permitted to experience it fully. This documentary asks viewers to reexamine everything they thought they knew about giving birth and the potential it holds.

Undisturbed birth is revealed as an integral part of women’s sexuality and a widely neglected human right. Couples share their birth experiences, discussing their fears and how they found the support, nurturing, and ultimately the power and strength within themselves to labor and birth their babies in a beautiful, loving, and ecstatic way.

It’s My Body, My Baby, My Birth
RT 27min

San Francisco homebirth midwife, Maria Iorillo shares homebirth stories and interviews of clients from her very multicultural practice. This is a good film for women and families exploring their childbirth choices. Maria Iorillo, Producer

Waterbirth in the 21st Century
RT 30min

By showing you these pictures we try to give you useful objective information about how the waterbirths are done by our team in Ostend. More than 18 years of experience and 3500 waterbirths gave us an increasing confidence in a positive physical and psychological effects of a warm aquatic environment. Our water birth-team in Ostend consists of a variety of different professionals who provide a prenatal aquatic preparation and give the possibility afterwards for the new parents to help their baby get further accustomed to the aquatic environment. Producer Fabien Raes

The Business of Being Born  
RT 84min

In this candid and eye-opening documentary, director Abby Epstein and producer Ricki Lake explore and question the way American women have babies. Shocking facts (to men and women alike) regarding the historical and current practices of the child birthing industry are interwoven with stories of couples who decide to give birth on their own terms.

"I wanted to make this movie after my two very different birth experiences with my children. I felt like I had an opportunity to explore and question birthing practices in this country and perhaps be an advocate for mothers’ rights and better maternity care." (Ricki Lake)

Ricki Lake, Abby Epstein, Amy Slotnick, Producers

Reducing Infant Mortality

RT 17min

Listen to Obstetricians, Doulas, Neonatologists, Midwives, Psychologists, Pediatricians, and other Physicians explain how our health care system is failing babies and mothers and what we can do about it.  Producers Debby Takikawa, Shelley Campbell Director Debby Takikawa

Pregnant in America

RT 106 min

Pregnant in America is the controversial story of life's greatest miracle in the hands of a nation's most powerful interests. His wife pregnant, first-time filmmaker Steve Buonaugurio sets out to create a film that will expose the underside of the U.S. childbirth industry and help end its neglectful exploitation of pregnancy and birth. And though he set out to fight the system, Steve finds that he and his wife must depend on it when a hospital struggles to save their newborn daughter's life. Writer/Director Steve Buonaugurio

Political Midwifery
RT 13 min

The ancient practice of Midwifery has struggled to survive through generations of women since the Burning Times. Today, in what is considered a modern day witch hunt, a political boiling point has again been reached. Investigations in Washington State have increasingly forced midwives to go “on trial” in hearings before the State Department of Health following complaints filed by medical professionals against midwives whose homebirth clients have transported to hospital. In an overwhelming number of these investigations, midwives lose their license, midwifery practice and, in some cases, home and birthing center. In “Political Midwifery“, midwives, homebirth mothers and natural birth advocates speak to the nature of the investigations and the increasing rift between the Medical Model of Care and the Traditional Midwifery Model of Care.

Formula For Disaster 2007
RT 40min

UNICEF shows us how sophisticated ads, clever promotions and bribery is killing an estimated 1.5 million babies each year. Filmed in the Philippines. “The milk companies’ formula for profits is a formula for disaster,” and this film alerts us to the easily remedied causes.

UNICEF Philippines

Kangaroo Mother Care
RT 20min

This is the “How-To, Why-To” video that summarizes the latest research to prove that the newborn thrives best on his mother’s chest. How to wrap the baby to mother’s chest is also shown. Kangaroo Mother Care enables baby to relax, improves the heart rate and body temperature.

By Nils Bergman, M.D.  You can e-mail Dr. Bergman at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This innovative video production presents unique insights about home birthing from the point of view of dads who have already experienced it.

Producer/director Jorge Visions Unlimited Productions

It’s My Body, My Baby, My Birth
RT 27min

San Francisco homebirth midwife, Maria Iorillo shares homebirth stories and interviews of clients from her very multicultural practice. This is a good film for women and families exploring their childbirth choices. Maria Iorillo, Producer

Angels in the Dust
RT 105 min

Angels in the Dust is a story of hope and healing in the face of a staggering crisis. AIDS is leaving entire South African villages decimated and thousands of children orphaned, with no adults to raise them. The inspiring story of Marion Cloete, a university-trained therapist who — with her husband and three daughters — fearlessly walked away from a privileged life in a wealthy Johannesburg suburb to build Botsabelo, an extraordinary village and school that provides shelter, food, and education to more than 550 South African children. Directed by Louise Hogarth

FINDING THE WORDS
RT 10min

Over a ten year period the rate of autism increased in California by 273%. In the US, neurological disorders have reached epidemic proportions. What is the cause? Could vaccines play a part? What does it take to heal? The message is: There is hope. Children can recover.

Elizabeth Horn, Horn Productions, Inc.