Seventeen female filmmakers put their emotions over the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade into the short films that make up Give Me An A.
By Georgia Valles, Photos courtesy of
CW: This article contains spoilers for Give Me An A
It has officially been a year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a life-altering decision that made women all over the country fear for themselves and generations to come. The news settled with everyone in different ways, pain and anger highlighting many women. For filmmaker Natasha Halevi, the ruling ignited an artistic response to these dark times. She gathered a group of female filmmakers who felt the same pain and anger just one week after the ruling.
“This film is showing an emotional response, so it’s not telling you what to say or do,” Halevi says. “It’s showing you how different women feel through horror and sci-fi. That makes it watchable for everyone.”
Give Me An A is a collection of sci-fi, horror and comedy short films written and directed by noble women filmmakers like Halevi. Each film showcases a different fear and emotion that came up when the news broke on June 24, 2022. The film has notable actors such as Jennifer Holland, Molly C. Quinn and Sean Gunn who took a chance and showed their support for this horrific decision. Halevi praises each person involved in this film for using their voice and talent on such an important matter.
“I had so many feelings coursing through my body when Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Quinn explains. “I was a complete mess.”
The film is a compelling display of the world women are living in shown through the internal emotions and physical pain women face daily since the ruling. In sequences such as “DTF” written and directed by Bonnie Discepolo and starring Jennifer Holland, audiences see Holland’s character taking great measures to inform the man she wants to have sex with of his “rights” if she were to get pregnant. In the end, the man gets handed a newborn baby due to the contract he signed to sleep with Holland’s character.
“Sometimes when you’re going through something difficult, you have to laugh to keep from crying, and that was sort of what it was like filming it,” Holland says.
In another Halevi-directed short film, she takes inspiration from real letters written by Abigail Adams, the wife of second U.S. President John Adams in 1776. These letters reveal Abigail’s efforts for John to “remember the ladies” when creating the U.S. Constitution and how things would affect the future of women in the country. Her efforts to show her husband that men and women should be equal were met with backlash from John Adams, even though he had the power to fulfill her ideas.
A wraparound, a short segment that provides the context to the main idea of the film, separates each segment. Give Me An A opens with a group of cheerleaders, a nod to U.S. culture that Halevi wanted to reclaim to support and empower women. Their cheerful chant is a ghastly response to abortion laws. They chant things like, “We are the future, we’re here to say we just want bodily autonomy” and, “It’s my body, I decided what’s best.”
As the film continues, the cheerleaders introduce each film. Their smiles and body language show discomfort toward each segment. Halevi reveals they are mimicking what is happening now and how anyone identifying as a woman or a nonbinary person feels toward the situation at hand. SPOILER ALERT: To conclude the film, the cheerleaders take down the patriarchy in uniforms that were once clean-cut but are now torn and dirty.
Recently, production company XYZ Films acquired Give Me An A. Since then, the film has been on a country-wide screening in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and, of course, Austin. Halevi, along with some of the cast and crew, have made appearances at these showings. Because of their great desire to show awareness for reproductive and abortion laws, they have donated all proceeds from the screenings to local nonprofits.
“We made this film to spark discussion,” Halevi says. “We want people to see this and talk about it with other people who saw it and then talk to people who haven’t seen it. Let the conversation expand on reproductive rights.”
