By Katrina Medoff
When NYWIFT member Cait Johnston first heard about the Jane Collective — a real-life group of women who helped others get abortions before Roe v. Wade — at a NYWIFT screening, she knew it was a story she had to tell.
She teamed up with fellow member Rachel Carey, a screenwriter and director she know through a NYC theater company called The Shelter, to create Ask for Jane, a narrative feature film that they are currently crowdfunding for on Seed&Spark.
NYWIFT member Katrina Medoff spoke with Johnston, the film’s creator and lead actor, and Carey to learn more about the inspiration for the film and why this is an important story to tell right now:
Can you tell me more about what Ask for Jane is about?
Rachel Carey: Ask for Jane is based on the real-life story of the Jane Collective, a group of women who operated like a spy network to provide safe, illegal abortions to the women of Chicago in the years 1968-1973, immediately before the passage of Roe v. Wade. The Jane Collective ultimately provided over 10,000 women with abortions before their arrest in 1972. Cait and I were both amazed by their story and surprised that we’d never heard of them before.
What was your inspiration for creating Ask for Jane?
Cait Johnston: I’d actually been wanting to make a feature film for a long time, but I wasn’t sure what it would be about. Then I went to a NYWIFT screening last May of Mary Dore’s wonderful doc She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry — it was the first time I’d ever heard of the Jane Collective, and I got chills. This was the movie, this was the story that I had to tell.
Ask for Jane is a perfect conflation of my work as an artist and as an activist with Planned Parenthood — The Janes are a pivotal piece of women’s history, and it’s time to tell their story to a wider audience. Then November happened, and this project became (unfortunately) even more timely and relevant than I’d ever imagined.
Still from the Ask for Jane trailer
This is obviously a project with a lot of great female roles, and it’s wonderful that this story is being told by a female writer/director. Will there be other women involved behind the camera as well?
RC: This project certainly passes the Bechdel test with flying colors! We are meeting with some female producers about it, and we’re certainly looking to have a strong female presence on the crew.
CJ: I was looking at the infographics from the Geena Davis Institute [on Gender in Media] and I can’t wait to turn those ratios on their heads with Ask for Jane. In the top 500 films from 2007-2012, women actors were outnumbered 2.25:1, only 30.8% of speaking characters were women, and of those women, a third of them were shown in sexually revealing attire or partially naked. Ask for Jane easily breaks all these statistics. I’m definitely interested in involving as many women as possible behind the camera too, and I’m excited to work with male allies as well!
Why do you think it’s important to tell this story right now?
CJ: People have forgotten what life in America was like before Roe v. Wade was passed. Restricting access to abortion never leads to fewer abortions; it leads to more women dying from trying to take matters into their own hands. With conservative lawmakers attacking women’s reproductive rights like never before, I think it’s important to remind (and in many cases, to teach) people what our country looks like without safe and legal access to abortion. If we don’t learn from our history, how can we ever hope to make progress?
What has been your process with crowdfunding on Seed&Spark, and why did you choose that funding route for this project?
RC: We discussed going a more traditional route: making a short film, sending it to festivals, getting people to look at our feature script, and hopefully getting funding that way. But we realized that the “traditional route” would take at least two years before we were filming. We felt the story was urgently needed now, and we also expected that Hollywood would be gun shy about the political content. It seemed like a great fit for crowdfunding.
CJ: The story of the Jane Collective is ultimately an empowering one of women coming together to help each other when society won’t — and that’s exactly how I wanted to fundraise the film! If every person who supported this film donated just $1, we’d have our budget for production in no time. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but those dollars add up.
One of the things that excited me about Seed&Spark is that it’s a crowdfunding platform built and run by women! Seed&Spark is also unique in that it’s specifically designed for independent filmmakers: people can contribute money OR lend items that we need (vintage cars, camera equipment, locations, craft services, etc.) and have the monetary value of that item apply to our funds raised. So if you’ve got a car made before 1968, give us a call!
What should people do if they want to support Ask for Jane?
CJ: Donate what you can and tell all your friends to do the same. We only have until April 5 to hit our goal or we won’t get to keep any of the funds we’ve raised so far, so time really is of the essence. Show your support at www.seedandspark.com/fund/askforjane.
Anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about?
RC: I’d like folks to know that our film is going to be fun to watch. If you hear that it’s an abortion movie, you might think it’s all about women dying in back alleys and must be impossibly depressing. But our film is about these active, badass women who really looked out for other women in need.
I like heist movies and comedy, so I brought some of that sensibility to this screenplay; it’s a drama, but it should also have elements of a thriller and some humor, too. These are likable women — in the movie and in real life!
You can follow Ask for Jane on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and donate to their Seed&Spark by April 5.
Photos courtesy of Ask for Jane.
Related Posts
Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Becky Morrison
Let’s all welcome new NYWIFT member Becky Morrison! Becky is the Founder & CEO of The Light, an award-winning production company that produces films, series and high-end commercials. Becky kicked-off her career on the Hollywood blockbuster I Am Legend, dabbled in animation on Disney’s The Wild, then entered the world of rock n’ roll as visual content producer for U2’s world tour. In the span of her career, Becky has produced hundreds of projects for clients such as Netflix, Apple, NBC, A&E, Hulu and Disney. She has spent years studying the history of Hollywood and uses her research to inform a new framework for conscious production. She spoke to us about how she is using her creative work to inspire positive change.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Cathy Perifimos
Meet NYWIFT new member Cathy Perifimos! Cathy is an entertainment attorney, Of Counsel at Thompson LLC, consulting with the firm on entertainment and media transactions. Previously, she was Vice President at Paramount Global, where she managed the business and legal affairs of Smithsonian Channel and worked on documentaries and unscripted projects across the MTV Entertainment Group brands. Prior to joining Smithsonian Channel in 2014, Cathy was an Associate at the boutique entertainment law firm of Dembitzer & Dembitzer LLP. She was also an Associate Agent in the dramatic rights department of the Curtis Brown literary agency. She is a graduate of Barnard College and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Cathy is a founding board member of Barnard Women in Entertainment, and at Cardozo is a member of the Filmmakers Legal Clinic Board and the FAME Advisory Board. Cathy resides in New Jersey with her husband and their cat. Recently, we asked Cathy about her impressive legal career in the entertainment industry.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Michelle de la Rosa
Let's all give a warm welcome to Michelle de la Rosa! Michelle is a freelance theatre and film director based in New York City. She is a native New Yorker with Puerto Rican and Jewish heritage. As a director, she has participated in several NYC theatre festivals. She studied directing under the mentorship of John Grabowski at the Acting Studio in New York. She is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and now NYWIFT! As a playwright, her short play Spell It (2021) was produced by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Continue reading to learn more about Michelle and how she got to where she is today as an artist.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Val Dowd
We’re thrilled to welcome our new NYWIFT member, Val Dowd! Val is a film sales manager with a passion for highlighting underrepresented voices. Some of her career highlights thus far include doing outreach for Matthew Heineman’s documentary The First Wave and working with her team on Hulu’s The Jewel Thief. She’s very motivated by community and finding films that can open doors for people and offer fresh perspectives. Read our interview with Val to learn more about the role of a film sales manager, how she approaches selling and distributing projects, and her love for film.
READ MORE