This characteristic references suicide.
Director Elizabeth Sankey was hospitalised after giving delivery to her son, spending eight weeks in a psychiatric ward as a result of postpartum psychological sickness. After being discharged, she desperately wished to be taught extra about what had occurred to her, and through her analysis, she quickly discovered “attention-grabbing hyperlinks” between perinatal psychological well being issues and the position of ladies in medication and the witch trials, and the way ladies have been and are stigmatised and shamed by all three. This birthed her newest documentary, Witches.
Elizabeth has chronicled the feminine expertise by way of documentaries beforehand, diving deep into our love of romcoms in 2019’s Romantic Comedy and 2022’s Boobs, which seems at ladies’s relationships with their breasts in addition to social pressures placed on how we really feel about them.
Witches, although, is an ode to ladies who do not conform, in addition to a rallying cry for higher medical and social understanding of postpartum psychological well being, from despair and anxiousness to psychosis. Peppered with witchy popular culture references, from Depraved to The Witches of Eastwick – it questions why sure “witches” have been remoted and stigmatised, and the way channelling their outlook would possibly really be the insurrection in opposition to – and liberation from – society’s values that all of us want, a rejection of the mainstream concepts round each femininity and motherhood.
Elizabeth interviews ladies she met throughout her time on the ward, in addition to a perinatal psychologist and historian, about their experiences and analysis, in addition to how witchcraft and the social attitudes round persecuted and remoted ladies tie in with the story of postpartum psychological sickness.
It is a problem that wants extra airtime, particularly seeing as suicide is a number one explanation for maternal demise within the UK, and the charges are rising. GLAMOUR sat down with Elizabeth to speak about her hopes for her documentary being a “spell ebook” for fogeys navigating the identical waters that she did.
What made you need to make the documentary?
After I was sick, I used to be on this assist group for brand new moms known as Motherly Love, which had been such a turning level for me when it comes to my care, as a result of it was these ladies who once I mentioned ‘I am having these ideas, I am having these emotions’, they instantly have been like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve had that. It is terrible, is not it?’ And it normalised all these intrusive ideas, and actually made me really feel like I wasn’t alone.
After I was launched from the ward, I actually wished to make one thing about [the experience] for myself, to heal myself but in addition to proceed to – I hate this time period – pay it ahead, to offer different ladies that area. We actually noticed the movie as a spell ebook that we hoped that ladies would share if it linked with them, they usually’d have it as a useful resource.
MUBI