Erika Cohn is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning director and producer. Most recently she completed “The Judge,” a Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated film about the first woman judge appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a courts. The doc premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ “Independent Lens” series. Cohn co-directed and produced “In Football We Trust,” an Emmy award-winning feature documentary that premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was also broadcast on “Independent Lens.” Cohn has received numerous accolades for her work, including a Director’s Guild of America award. Her work has been supported by IFP, the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Institute, Hot Docs, Sheffield, ITVS, Women in Film, BAVC, and the CPB Producer’s Academy, among others.

“Belly of the Beast” will screen in the New York edition of the 2020 Human Rights Watch Film Festival. This year’s fest has gone digital due to COVID-19, and runs June 11- 20. You can find more information on the fest’s website. 

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

EC: A courageous woman who was involuntarily sterilized while in prison teams up with a radical lawyer to stop human rights abuses in women’s prisons. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues in the “free world,” they uncover a series of statewide crimes — from inadequate health care, to sexual assault, to coercive sterilizations — primarily targeting women of color. Together, they wage a near-impossible battle against the California Department of Corrections, exposing modern-day eugenics while fighting for reparations.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

EC: Attorney Cynthia Chandler and I were first introduced in 2010 through a mutual friend. I was inspired by Cynthia’s compassionate release work and intrigued by Justice Now, one of the only — if not the only — U.S. organizations with board members in prison. I was haunted by their “let our families have a future” campaign, which exposed the multiple ways prisons destroy the human right to family, one of the most heinous being the illegal sterilizations primarily targeting women of color. This screamed eugenics. I wondered who this was happening to, what the circumstances surrounding these procedures were, why there hadn’t been repercussions, and why no one else was talking about this?

The next ten years would dramatically change my life, as I slowly uncovered answers to these questions through multiple lenses; artist, activist, journalist, and friend. Cynthia invited me to volunteer for Justice Now and I later became a volunteer legal advocate, providing direct service needs for over 150 people in California’s women’s prisons. From there, I began working on a project that became “Belly of the Beast.” 

Centering the experiences of those inside the “belly of the beast” reframes the lens through which we view crime, punishment, and rehabilitation. Amid a time of exploding prison populations, disproportionate incarceration of people of color, privatization, and overcrowding — our criminal justice system is in crisis. Women of color are the fastest growing prison population and yet there’s a profound lack of resources, attention, and interest surrounding women’s incarceration.

The immense dehumanization and fear of retaliation often inhibits incarcerated people’s voices from being heard, further marginalizing an already “near-invisible population.” Given the levels of secrecy and privacy institutions hide behind, it’s incredibly difficult to uncover abuses of power and state sponsored violence.

It is my hope that by shining a light on modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice inside prison, “Belly of the Beast” will call attention to other abuses within our criminal justice system and provide survivors with reparations.

W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?

EC: We witness population control and systemic racism through policing, imprisonment, and a lack of access to healthcare. Our institutions need to be held accountable for how they destroy human dignity, deny the basic human right to family, and devalue Black and Brown lives.

“Belly of the Beast” is a part of the broader conversation that highlights these injustices, advocates for lasting change, and calls for immediate redress and reparation.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

EC: Funding was a tremendous challenge in the beginning of the filmmaking process. Initially, people couldn’t believe that illegal sterilization was still happening, and therefore couldn’t get behind a film that exposed the practice in prison — despite having hundreds of testimonials from those who were directly impacted. This changed after the Center for Investigative Reporting released their series of articles by Corey Johnson. I had no idea at the time just how instrumental CIR’s work would become both in the film’s narrative and behind the camera.

Though Justice Now had worked on this issue for nearly a decade before Corey Johnson began his investigation, CIR’s findings thrust the sterilization abuse into a national conversation, ultimately leading to a series of hearings in the California State Legislature. This provided “Belly of the Beast” with a legitimacy and urgency that many funders needed prior to supporting the film.

Prisons are so far out of our sight and our consciousness, far from our physical reach — we are rarely granted access to worlds behind walls that aren’t dramatized or sensationalized. I wanted to reimagine how we visualize imprisonment by using imagery that evokes memory and passage of time, contrasting confinement and freedom, and viscerally placing the viewer within intimate, vulnerable, and uncomfortable spaces.

Our filmmaking team didn’t have access to some of these spaces, and therefore chose to carefully reconstruct them. We agonized over every detail, feeling the weight of responsibility and gravity of accurately depicting each memory, each moment, each restricted space, which were so carefully described and shared with me by people in prison.

Challenges surrounding access actually provided creative opportunities, and our team strove to visually demystify incarceration and cinematically push the boundaries of verité filmmaking, utilizing a combination of first person POV, recreation, and observational footage.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

EC: “Belly of the Beast” was self-funded for the first few years until we received support from the Tribeca Film Institute, which unlocked additional grants and foundation support including Fork Films; Chicken & Egg; The Fund for Investigative Journalism; Women in Film; The Berkeley Film Foundation; The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; From the Heart Productions; The San Francisco Foundation; Perspective Fund; and others.

Our team held several fundraisers and was fortunate to receive funding from numerous individual donors.

Finally, ITVS/”Independent Lens” was an invaluable co-production partner to collaborate with on this film. I am humbled by the sheer volume of people who poured their hearts into “Belly of the Beast.”

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

EC: I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and started attending the Sundance Film Festival at a young age. I fell in love with independent film. I deeply felt the power of cinema and craved the feeling of being transported into different worlds for a couple of hours.

I was 15 when I made my first film, mentored by a local youth media program in conjunction with the Sundance Institute. At the time, I was struggling with how to self-identify as a non-Mormon, coming from an interfaith family in a city where faith defines who a person is. Film became a catalyst for me to express my frustrations with socio-cultural-religious alienation and heal intergenerational wounds.

After this experience, I became committed to providing a platform for unheard voices to be heard and untold stories to be told. It’s a great privilege to be a storyteller, and it comes with a tremendous responsibility. I do not take this lightly. I’m driven to using cinema to move audiences to a more just world. 

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

EC: Best advice: Follow your gut, listen to your intuition. 

Worst advice: Don’t show weakness or vulnerability.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

EC: Rejection is raw and real. Fear is a huge component of that. Our lives as creators and artists are in constant turmoil — the ebbs and flows, the trials and tribulations, the successes and the failures. For me, the rejections sort of fuel a persistence and passion.

My advice is to feel assured in who you are, the skills you possess, and your goals for the future. Then don’t take no for an answer moving forward, no matter how many times you have to hear it.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

EC: It’s impossible to identify just one, many of my favorite films are directed by women. In my documentary work, I’ve been really inspired by Kim Longinotto. The intimacy and cinéma vérité style of her films have greatly influenced my creative approach. 

W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you keeping creative, and if so, how?

EC: None of us have the answers. There isn’t one right way to do things. I think so many of us are still mourning the loss of film festivals and theatrical/non-theatrical screenings as we knew them before COVID-19. We’re concerned about what the future distribution landscape looks like, and agonizing over how production has been stalled or curtailed.

If and when we can let go of this uncertainty, I believe there is tremendous opportunity to reimagine what our industry could look like and therefore shift paradigms within our film community. Though sometimes painful, I am trying to reframe what a successful distribution and impact campaign looks like for “Belly of the Beast,” and it’s incredibly empowering. 

W&H: Recent protests in the U.S. and abroad have highlighted racism and anti-Black police brutality. The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What actions do you think need to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world more inclusive?

EC: There is tremendous privilege surrounding who gets to tell what stories in our industry. While there is increased awareness about structural racism with our film and documentary world, there needs to be action, specifically from white filmmakers and decision makers.

Those with hiring power and/or access to funding can create change — hire people of color in leadership and executive roles, fund projects made by filmmakers of color. For those of us without that power and access, let’s collectively put pressure on those who do. In addition, watch, support, and share films made by filmmakers of color. Listen to filmmakers of color.