4 Minute Trailer of Work In Progress: A Quiet Inquisition

Feature Documentary work in progress
Directed by Alessandra Zeka & Holen Sabrina Kahn
Produced by Adrenaline Films
Release Date: 2009

A Quiet Inquisition is a documentary feature about the criminalization of abortion in Central America. The film reveals the impact of the laws on individual women’s lives as well as how they reverberate through the entire society.

The backbone of this film are the first person accounts by women who have felt the law’s full weight. Through their harrowing stories we begin to unravel the reality of how the prohibitions function in everyday life. Some speak on camera in direct testimony, others like Luisa, who under indictment, cannot show her face, remains a powerful witness to her own experience. Surrounding these women stories, are a series of characters - some in resistance to, other in support of, and some caught between the laws, such as; Gabi, a Nicaraguan activist travels across the Country engaging bystanders in conversation through her songs; Doctors Sofia Villarta in El Salvador, and Karla Cerrata, in Nicaragua, struggle to navigate the line between the hand of the law and their own medical ethics; and Julia Regina de Cardenal, a Salvadoran pop singer and president of “Si la Vida” the Salvadoran organization most instrumental in getting the laws passes.

The film focuses foremost on El Salvador where the laws do not allow for a single exception for a legal abortion, not in cases of rape, or incest, nor when the mother's life is at risk. Because these laws have been in effect for over 10 years in El Salvador, we are able to bring to surface their profound consequences, while in neighboring Nicaragua, where similar laws have recently been passed, we explore a society still at the law’s onset. Investigatory and emotional this film is an exploration into the complex effects of such criminalization on all sectors of society and a cautionary tale for a possible future at our own nation’s doorstep.

visit the blog