"Excuse
Me to Say" and
"If
All Else Fails..."
Two 30 minute documentary shorts, 2005
video coming soon
Set
in the West African capital city of Accra, Ghana, these
two documentary films explore how women from many different
ages, educational levels, and class backgrounds speak
about health risks, medicines, and concepts of beauty
and the body. The stories of individual women weighing
their options are told directly to the camera through
this revealing collection of characters and locations,
from blood tonic stands in open air markets to herbalists
to spiritual healers. These documentaries place the views
of medical practitioners side by side with those of ordinary
women, sewing students, and traditionalists as they discuss
different care options for maternity, childbirth, abortion,
and / or chronic diseases. Doctors, herbalists, and faith
healers also have their say as the camera captures them
in action. If All Else Fails and Excuse
Me To Say weave a complex web of options and opinions
that inform Ghanaian women as they face decisions about
managing their own health in a time of ever increasing
costs and risks.
From the forty hours of footage shot in Accra, Ghana over eight weeks in 2001,
as part of the second summer session of the Women’s Health in the
City of Accra Project, a transnational ethnographic research seminar sponsored
by the Ford Foundation, the University of Ghana, and multiple generous
UM units -- Arts of Citizenship, CAAS, History, IRWG, LSA, Obstetrics & Gynecology,
OVPR, and the Program for Society and Medicine.
| Credits |
Production
- Nancy Hunt
Direction
- R. Lane Clark
Editing
- Yoni Goldstein
Additional
Editing - Meredith Zielke
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| Format |
Digital
Video NTSC
|
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