VESSEL
Synopsis
VESSEL begins with a young doctor who lived by the sea, and an unlikely idea. Rebecca Gomperts, horrified by the realities created by anti-abortion law around the world, felt compelled to challenge this. Her method: to provide abortions on a ship in offshore waters.
Her project, Women on Waves, begins as flawed spectacle, a media frenzy, faced with governmental, religious, and military blockades. But with each setback comes a more refined mission, until Rebecca has the revelation that she can use new technologies to bypass law – and train women to give themselves safe abortions using WHO-sanctioned protocols with pills. We witness the creation of an underground network of emboldened, informed activists, working at the cutting edge of global reproductive rights, who trust women to handle abortion themselves. VESSEL is Rebecca’s story: one of a woman who hears and answers a calling, and transforms a wildly improbable idea into a global movement.
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The Filmmakers
Diana Whitten Vessel
Diana Whitten (director/producer) is a filmmaker with a decade of professional film/TV direction, production and design experience, including work on shorts and features appearing in over 25 international film festivals. A graduate of Tufts (BA), the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (BFA), and the New School (MA), she was a Fulbright Fellow to Indonesia in 2000, founded Sovereignty Productions in 2008, and was the Director of Communications at Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program. This is her first feature film.
Mitchell Block Producer
Mitchell Block has handled the distribution and marketing of hundreds of documentary, live action, and animated shorts films and documentary features, 25 have won Oscars and 71 have received Academy Award nominations. He is president of Direct Cinema Limited, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy, a founding member of BAFTA-LA, and a life member of the UFVA and the IDA. Recent work includes the Emmy Award winning PBS series CARRIER, and the Oscar nominated short doc POSTER GIRL.
Festivals & Awards
SXSW
2014
Winner - Special Jury Award for Political Courage & Audience Award
Sheffield Doc/Fest
2014
Winner - Peter Wintonick Award
Telluride MountainFilm Festival
2014
Honorable Mention for Moving Mountains Award
Nantucket Film Festival
2014
Winner - Adrienne Shelly Excellence in Filmmaking Award
Hot Docs International Film Festival
2014
Official Selection
Independent Film Festival Boston
2014
Official Selection
DOC NYC
2014
Official Selection
Reviews
“An intriguing story passionately told.”
-Variety
“Whitten's film expertly frames the charismatic and indefatigable Gomperts as she endures the opposition and plows fearlessly forward on her mission.”
-The Austin Chronicle
“A compact and punchy narrative that makes you believe one boat full of people can truly change the world…Vessel takes a highly galvanizing topic and presents it in a way that should translate to people no matter how they feel about the subject matter.”
-We Got This Covered
“Intense, emotional, and inspiring.”
-Bitch Magazine
“Beautiful and heart-wrenching.”
-FireDogLake