NEW BRITAIN, Conn — Central Connecticut State University in New Britain will host award-winning filmmakers Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes for a Women’s History Month luncheon next Wednesday at noon, as was announced by the university on Friday.
Lessin and Pildes created “The Janes”, a 2022 documentary/thriller that tells the story of the Jane Collective, a group of women in Chicago who performed around 11,000 abortions between 1968 and 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.
The March 20 luncheon at Memorial Hall will offer students, faculty, and staff an opportunity to speak with Lessin and Pildes about the critically acclaimed film after a short excerpt is screened.
Officially known as the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation, the Jane Collective was an underground service that worked to address the significant number of unsafe abortions being performed by untrained providers. The Janes gave women safer and more affordable access to abortions, the Smithsonian Magazine said.
With an approval rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, “The Janes” uses archival footage and interviews with members of the collective to give audience members a timely glimpse into the lives of women living in the time before Roe v. Wade.
Depicting the collective in the spring of 1972, the film chronicles a police raid on a South Side of Chicago apartment, where seven women who were part of the network were arrested and charged.
“Using code names, fronts and safe houses to protect themselves and their work, the accused had built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions,” the film synopsis states, according to CCSU.
The documentary is currently available for viewing on Max (HBO).
CCSU President Zulma Toro will attend the luncheon and greet attendees.
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Dalton Zbierski is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at dzbierski@FOX61.com.
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