Belly of the Beast,  Filmmaker Discussion
Channel: San Francisco Public Library
Date: 2022-12-26

Activists against coerced sterilization in California women’s prisons, Kelli Dillon and Cynthia Chandler, discuss their work after an online screening of the film which documents their battle with the Department of Corrections.

Filmed over seven years with extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, Belly Of The Beast exposes modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons. The pastoral farmlands surrounding the Central California Women’s Facility, the world’s largest women’s prison, help conceal the reproductive and human rights violations transpiring inside its walls. Dillon, a courageous woman who was involuntarily sterilized at the facility, teams up with Chandler, a radical lawyer, to stop these violations. They spearhead investigations that uncover a series of statewide crimes, primarily targeting women of color, from inadequate access to healthcare to sexual assault to illegal sterilization. Together, with a team of tenacious heroines, both in and out of prison, they take to the courtroom to fight for reparations.