Phyllis Nagy

Call Jane

Edition 2022

Gala Premières en speciale evenementen

121' - 2022 - Historical, Drama - Dialogue: English

Director: Phyllis Nagy Composer: Isabella Summers With: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Wunmi Mosaku, Kate Mara

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Phyllis Nagy, screenwriter of Carol, makes her directorial debut with a stylish period drama about 'the Janes', a Chicago women's collective that performed safe abortions.

"Call Jane". This call turned up regularly in the streets of Chicago in the 60s and 70s. Often on flyers and posters that used code language to announce that this mysterious Jane could help with unwanted pregnancies. One of the women who is reached by this call is Joy (Elizabeth Banks). She is a pregnant woman who knows what she wants. Until the doctor tells her that her heart is too weak to bring another baby into the world. It's her life or that of her unborn child. But she has no choice: abortion is illegal. Luckily, there is still Jane, a collective led by Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) that helps perform safe abortions. Phyllis Nagy, who as screenwriter of Todd Haynes' fifties portrait Carol proved that she has a special sense of place and time, also knows how to draw and dissect the American seventies in her directorial debut.

"In Phyllis Nagy’s feature directorial debut Call Jane, the Carol screenwriter turns her interest in portraying the messy lives of real women on a pivotal point in American history, using Elizabeth Banks’ character Joy as a canny, if unexpected way into a remarkable group of women." - Indiewire