A home birth is a birth that takes place in a residence rather than in a hospital or a birthing center. They may be attended by a midwife, or lay attendant with experience in managing home births. Home birth was, until the advent of modern medicine, the de facto method of delivery. The term was coined in the middle of the 19th century as births began to take place in hospitals.
Steve James is an American film producer and director of several documentaries, including Hoop Dreams (1994), Stevie (2002), The Interrupters (2011), Life Itself (2014), and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016).
The University of Chicago Medical Center is a nationally ranked academic medical center located in Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. It is the flagship campus for The University of Chicago Medicine system and was established in 1898. Affiliated with and located on The University of Chicago campus, it also serves as the teaching hospital for Pritzker School of Medicine. Primary medical facilities on campus include the Center for Care and Discovery, Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital, and Comer Children's Hospital.
Kartemquin Films is a four-time Oscar-nominated 501(c)3 non-profit production company located in Chicago, Illinois, that produces a wide range of documentary films. It is the documentary filmmaking home of acclaimed producers such as Gordon Quinn, Steve James, Peter Gilbert, Maria Finitzo, Joanna Rudnick, Bing Liu, Aaron Wickenden, and Ashley O’Shay (Unapologetic).
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is a 430-bed teaching hospital located in Chelsea, London. The hospital has a rich history in that it serves as the new site for the Westminster Hospital. It is operated by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and became a member of Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre in July 2020. The hospital is the central part of Imperial College London Chelsea and Westminster Campus, and plays an integral role in teaching students and medical research at Imperial College London.
The Sloane Hospital for Women is the obstetrics and gynecology service within NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) in New York City. It was founded in 1886 with Columbia P&S as a training and treatment center for obstetrics. It has provided over 100 years of obstetrical care. The hospital is located within Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital.
Gordon Quinn is Artistic Director and founding member of Kartemquin Films and a 2007 recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Gordon Quinn has been making documentaries for over 45 years and has produced or directed over 30 films. His recent directing credits include Prisoner of Her Past and A Good Man. His producing credits include the films Hoop Dreams; In the Family;Vietnam, Long Time Coming; Golub: Late Works Are the Catastrophes; 5 Girls; Refrigerator Mothers; and Stevie. Most recently, Gordon executive produced Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita and The New Americans, for which he directed the Palestinian segment. Currently, he is executive producing several new films for Kartemquin.
Inquiring Nuns is a 1968 Kartemquin Films production directed by Gordon Quinn and Gerald Temaner. The documentary film features Sisters Marie Arne and Mary Campion, two young Catholic nuns who visit a variety of Chicago locales to ask people the question, "Are you happy?" They meet a variety of individuals ranging from hippie musicians to intellectuals, whose responses are everything from the mundane to the spiritual. The film was directly influenced by Jean Rouch's Chronique d'un été, which Quinn and Temaner had watched at Doc Films while they were undergraduates at the University of Chicago. The film was shot on Kartemquin's “Camera #1”, a custom-modified crystal sync Auricon with a used manual zoom lens Quinn purchased from Albert Maysles, and to which he added a World War II gunner handle bought from a pawn shop as an extra grip for steadiness.
Joseph Bolivar DeLee was an American physician who became known as the father of modern obstetrics. DeLee founded the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, where he introduced the first portable infant incubator. Early in his career, he was associated with the medical school at Northwestern University. After 1929, he was employed by the medical school at the University of Chicago.
Judy Hoffman is an American filmmaker and arts activist based in Chicago. She graduated from Northwestern University with a MFA and currently holds a faculty position at the University of Chicago. Hoffman has played a major role in the development of Kartemquin Films, a documentary filmmaking company founded in Chicago in 1966. Hoffman has worked with extensively with Kwakwaka’wakw, a First Nation in British Columbia, to produce films. Hoffman has brought activism to her films, and continues to show different facets of the city of Chicago.
The Pyongyang Maternity Hospital is a maternity and teaching hospital in Pyongyang. Nurses and midwives are educated in the hospital for work outside the North Korean capital. There is a neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. In addition, there are multiple different wards, such as dental and breast cancer wards, to treat mothers' various health problems.
On Beauty is a 2014 short documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films. It follows the story of Rick Guidotti, a fashion photographer who in 1998 decided to quit the fashion industry to found a nonprofit based on promoting diversity and acceptance.
Almost There is a 2014 independent documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films. It was directed by Aaron Wickenden and Dan Rybicky.
As Goes Janesville is a 2012 independent documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films and 371 Productions. It explores the future of the American middle class by focusing on the stories of Janesville, WI.
The School Project is an independent cross-platform media project. It explores what a healthy public education system looks like through the lens of Chicago Public Schools. It focuses on issues including standardized testing, charter schools, privatization, and school closings. It is a collaboration between Kartemquin Films, Siskel/Jacobs Productions, Free Spirit Media, Kindling Group, Media Process Group, and several freelancers. Its media partners include Catalyst Chicago, Chicago Sun-Times, and WTTW/Channel 11.
The Last Pullman Car is a 1983 feature-length documentary film produced by Kartemquin Films. The film focuses on the conflict between labor unions and corporations, and was created during a time in the company's history when its directors were making industrial for-hire films to support their social-issue, union-focused documentaries.
Unbroken Glass is a 2016 independent documentary film, directed by Dinesh Das Sabu and produced by Kartemquin Films. Unbroken Glass weaves together Das Sabu’s journey of discovery with cinéma vérité scenes of his family dealing with still raw emotions and consequences of his immigrant parents’ lives and deaths. The film was shot over five years in Illinois, New Mexico, California, and India.
Peter Kuttner is a Chicago filmmaker, activist, and cameraman. He is known for his early socially-conscious documentary films that touch on topics such as opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, gentrification of Chicago, racism, and social class. He produced many of these with the film collective Kartemquin Films, of which he was an original member. He is best known for his work on the film The End of the Nightstick (1993) with Cindi Moran and Eric Scholl, which documented police brutality in Chicago and torture allegations against commander Jon Burge. Kuttner has worked extensively in activism and community service, and was a founding member of activist group Rising Up Angry. Kuttner has worked with many collaborators including Kartemquin Collective founder Gordon Quinn, and filmmakers Haskell Wexler and Robert Kramer. He is also known for camera work on a number of major motion pictures including Man of Steel and Source Code.
Raising Bertie is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Margaret Byrne and produced by Ian Robertson Kibbe, Margaret Byrne, and Jon Stuyvesant. It was distributed by Kartemquin Films and aired in shortened form on the 30th season of PBS's documentary series POV on August 28, 2017.
Beatrice Edna Tucker was an American obstetrician and gynecologist. Tucker was the medical director of the Chicago Maternity Center for over forty years, providing access to home births for poor people in Chicago. She also worked as an advocate for equitable access to reproductive healthcare, lobbying for legalized abortion and access to birth control.
