OFFICIAL SELECTION - SXSW | THE CLIO VISUALIZING HISTORY PRIZE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN FILM - Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival | “Challenges assumptions, urging viewers to rethink who controls birth – and why.” - Jessi Cape, The Austin Chronicle
Midwifery • Reproductive Rights • Childbirth • Medicine • Faith
Date of Completion: 2025 | Run Time: 78 minutes | Language: English | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript | Director: Elaine Epstein | Producers: Elaine Epstein & Robin Hessman | Editor: Rachel Shuman | Cinematographer: Naiti Gámez | Original Score: Allyson Newman
When trusted midwives are arrested in a tight-knit Amish and Mennonite enclave, a quiet community is thrust into turmoil. With their way of life under threat, these women— once expected to stay silent— emerge as unexpected activists, defying tradition and fighting for justice.
With rare and intimate access, director Elaine Epstein crafts a powerful David-and-Goliath story of resilience, resistance, and solidarity. Set against the backdrop of the U.S. maternal mortality crisis and the ongoing erosion of reproductive rights, ARREST THE MIDWIFE reveals how a local struggle can ignite a broader reckoning — uniting unlikely allies in a shared battle for the right to choose how, where, and with whom to give birth.
The Austin Chronicle | Jessi Cape
“Challenges assumptions, urging viewers to rethink who controls birth – and why.”
Elements of Madness | Douglas Davidson
“Another example of the complexities that occur when the law is, itself, unethical or immoral in the face of common sense.”
Reel News Daily | Liz Whittemore
“A fierce feminist film about choice in the face of another oppressive patriarchal and capitalist structure. Let women choose.”
Culture Vulture | Andrew Osborne
“Heartless government pencil pushers aligned with the hospital industrial complex persecute female caregivers for the “crime” of facilitating home births in underserved “healthcare deserts,” resulting in an unexpected yet inspiring alliance between seemingly dissimilar rural and urban communities to fight the patriarchal powers that be.”
AWARDS
The Clio Visualizing History Prize for the Advancement of Women in Film | Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival
Mind the Gap Creation Prize, Honorable Mention | Mill Valley Film Festival
FESTIVALS
DC/DOX
Dialogues Documentary Film Festival
DOC NYC
Rehoboth Beach International Film Festival
SXSW
United Nations Association Film Festival
Woodstock Film Festival