Content/background of the film: “The Edge of Joy” is a documentary that follows an ensemble cast of Nigerian doctors, midwives and families to the frontlines of maternal care. Inside a maternity ward in Kano, Northern Nigeria, the film chronicles distressed labors, deaths, and miraculous survival. Outside, lack of blood supply transportation and family planning are examined as causes of the cycle that kills more than 36,000 Nigerian women each year.
About the filmmaker: Dawn Sinclair Shapiro began her journalism career working for the award-winning news magazine program CBS News Sunday Morning. Dawn has worked as a Producer, Writer, and Online Editor for Tribune Broadcasting, CNBC, MSNBC, Dateline NBC, and Chicago Public Radio. Her new film, “The Edge of Joy”, about maternal mortality in Nigeria was called “eye-opening” by Global Health magazine.
Link to Rotary Maternal Health Project: While filming this documentary, Dawn discovered that there was a Rotary project in the same area tackling exactly the problems and causes she was capturing in pictures. Thus, the film and Rotary become directly linked, helping to raise the needed awareness for these defects and providing an effective solution for them.
Dawn provided us with a 15 minutes version of her 45 minutes documentary and included a reference to the Maternal Health Project that was initiated by the Rotarian Action Group for Population & Development (RFPD) and supported by many Rotary clubs from Nigeria, Germany and Austria.
This film is intended for screenings at Rotary club meetings and district events to raise awareness for Rotary's important Area of Focus "Maternal and Child Health".
We are happy to provide you with a high quality copy of the film (Rotary edit); just contact us.
The full documentary has a length of about 45 minutes and can be watched online at VIEWCHANGE.
