A privileged housewife in 1968 Chicago finds herself at odds with the patriarchal medical establishment when she requires a life-saving termination of pregnancy. Joy (Elizabeth Banks, in a charming and nuanced performance) encounters an underground organization called Jane Collective that provides safe abortions to women, and eventually becomes an integral part in this necessary fight.
Directed by Phyllis Nagy, Call Jane deftly balances light and dark in exploring the stories of desperate women who require abortions and the women who risk their lives for them. A timely and relevant film about reproductive justice in the year that Roe v. Wade was overturned, the film is accessible, passionate, and hugely entertaining.
We know the achievements and victories of the era Nagy depicts, and yet, because she and her fine cast bring the story to such vivid, immediate life, the final moments of Call Jane are powerful with unanticipated joy. They sting too, because we know where we are now, and the trajectory of the intervening years.”—Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Mara, Chris Messina, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards
USA
2022
English
At Vancouver Playhouse
At The Rio
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Clan of the Painted Lady + Q&A
Jennifer Chiu's engrossing documentary explores the Hakka — a people, a language, and a culture that have been obscured for far too long. Tracing her own lineage back from Canada to China, the director creates an illuminating, bravely personal film.
Fiume o Morte!
The Croatian city of Rijeka rediscovers its own past in this delightfully unconventional hybrid documentary about Italian poet and proto-fascist Gabriele D’Annunzio, who seized the city known in Italian as Fiume in 1919.
Silent Friend
In this entrancing reverie from On Body and Soul director Ildikó Enyedi, we are invited to contemplate several human specimens from the vantage point of a mighty Ginkgo biloba tree on the grounds of a German university.
At the Place of Ghosts
In this supernatural Indigenous thriller from the director of Wildhood, siblings Mise'l and Antle journey into Sk+te'kmujue'katik (the Place of Ghosts), a primordial forest that exists outside of time, to confront their violent upbringing.
Bushido
An impeccable samurai (and "Go" expert), Kakunoshin is framed for a crime and forced into exile. Years later he stumbles across the true reason for his fall from grace, and sets about exacting his revenge...
Credits
Producer
Robbie Brenner, David Wulf, Kevin McKeon
Screenwriter
Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi
Cinematography
Greta Zozula
Editor
Peter McNulty
Production Design
Jona Tochet
Original Music
Isabella Summers
Director
Photo by K.L. Harrison
Phyllis Nagy
Phyllis Nagy earned Oscar and BAFTA nominations and won the NY Film Critics Circle award for her adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel, The Price of Salt, which was released as the feature film Carol (2015), starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Nagy garnered Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing for her work on the HBO film Mrs. Harris (2005), starring Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley, which also received SAG and Golden Globes nominations.
Filmography: Mrs. Harris (2005)