I Wish I Knew About the Doc ‘American Delivery’ Before Becoming a Mom
Motherhood has long been a favorite subject across every medium, from early cave drawings to modern cinema. Being a mother is at once universal and yet one of the universe’s greatest mysteries. This makes the possibility for storytelling quite literally infinite. And while we have countless extraordinary movies about motherhood in the cinematic canon, some from the last few years alone, there are far fewer films about giving birth. This is outrageous. While not all moms give birth to their children, those who do are forever changed by the experience. This week, ahead of Mother's Day, we welcome American Delivery to Kino Film Collection, an eye-opening documentary that sheds light on a darker side of motherhood that we don’t talk about nearly enough: maternal mortality.
Let’s just get one thing clear: childbirth is not always “magical” as popular culture would have us believe. Even the smoothest births can impact your body in ways that have been compared to the trauma of a car accident. And while maternal mortality is not exactly a topic you want to gab about over tea sandwiches at baby showers, it’s no less relevant for expectant mothers than, say, which stroller brands convert into the safest car seat. The reality is that, despite it being something that people have done since the beginning of humanity, childbirth is still a risky endeavor, and nobody wants to talk about that. But American Dream addresses it head on like a crowning baby eager to enter the world (sorry).
Carolyn Jones’s documentary sheds light on why more women die in childbirth in the U.S. than any other wealthy nation, particularly women of color. From ignored symptoms to misdiagnoses to excessive medical intervention, the film examines the physical conditions that can lead to maternal mortality and the systemic shortcomings that fail to prevent it. But it’s not all doom and gloom. American Delivery sets out to “solve the maternity mortality crisis in U.S. healthcare” with a surprisingly hopeful portrait of women and nurses advocating for each other amid a growing health epidemic. Interweaving stories of different women and their families across the country, the film examines how they navigate the many challenges of becoming a mother at every stage, from pregnancy to labor to post-partum.
I wish I knew about American Delivery before my own. Like many women, I checked into the hospital expecting my labor to end in happy tears, like the births we’ve been fed by Hollywood our whole lives, not excessive blood loss.
As prepared as I was—I took the recommended classes, I read the pamphlets—neither I nor my labor team could have foreseen the uncontrollable hemorrhaging that happened after I delivered my (luckily, healthy) baby. Two blood transfusions and many blankets later (did you know that losing a large amount of blood makes you shiver like crazy?), I thought to myself, “Wow. More people should talk about the many ways labor can go sideways.”
That’s exactly what American Delivery does, but it’s not a scare tactic. Far from it. The documentary’s focus on the heroes who work tirelessly to stem the crisis—the nurses, midwives, advocates—leaves you feeling more empowered than anything. This is what makes the film stand out, particularly in this sociopolitical climate that is increasingly hostile toward women. So even though I won’t be bringing up maternal mortality at any baby showers anytime soon, I sure as hell will be asking if anyone’s seen American Delivery.
Stream it now on Kino Film Collection.
American Delivery (2024)
In the U.S, where more women die in childbirth than in any other wealthy nation, the joys of pregnancy and motherhood are often overshadowed by fear. Amid a growing maternal health crisis, especially for women of color, American Delivery tells the stories of women, their families, and nurses as they navigate the challenges of pregnancy, mental health, childbirth, and the postpartum period.
If you want more films to watch in honor of Mother's Day, check out these titles below that explore the multidimensional reality that is being a mother.
Stream Stories About Motherhood
Café de Flore (2012)
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), Café de Flore is a love story about people separated by time and place, but connected in profound and mysterious ways. Atmospheric, fantastical, tragic and hopeful, the film chronicles the parallel fates of Jacqueline (Vanessa Paradis), a mother with a disabled son in 1960s Paris, and Antoine, a recently divorced DJ in present-day Montreal.
Four Daughters (2023)
Winner of the Best Documentary prize at Cannes and the Gotham Awards, this riveting documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania uses an audacious formal conceit to tell the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters. Attempting to answer the question of how and why the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized, Ben Hania reveals a complex family history.
52 Tuesdays (2013)
Sixteen-year-old Billie's reluctant path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for a gender transition and their time together becomes limited to Tuesday afternoons.
Carmel (2009)
Carmel is Amos Gitai's deeply personal and resonant meditation on Jewish and Israeli identity. Using both fiction and documentary techniques, Gitai links his family history to ancient history. The cycles of violence are never-ending, but so are the bonds of family. Gitai's wife Rivka reads letters from his mother, linking generations of Jews and Israelis within the warm embrace of memory.
The Disappearance of My Mother (2019)
An iconic fashion model who was a muse to Warhol and Dalí in the 1960s, and a radical feminist in the 1970s, Benedetta Barzini is fed up with all the roles life has imposed on her and wants nothing more than to disappear. But her filmmaker son Beniamino wants to keep her close for as long as possible – or, at least, as long as his camera keeps running.
Dukhtar (2014)
In the mountains of Pakistan, a young mother kidnaps her 10-year-old daughter to save her from a child marriage to a tribal leader. Their escape is a damning loss of honour for the two families. A deadly hunt begins for them. What follows is an epic journey through the sweeping landscape of Pakistan where the search for freedom and love comes with a price.
Call Her Applebroog (2016)
This deeply personal portrait of acclaimed New York–based artist Ida Applebroog was shot with mischievous reverence by her filmmaker daughter, Beth B (Exposed). Born in the Bronx to Orthodox Jewish émigrés from Poland, Applebroog looks back at how she expressed herself through decades of drawings and paintings, as well as her private journals.
Hive (2021)
The first film in Sundance history to win all three main awards in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition and Kosovo's entry for Best International Feature at the 94th Academy Awards, Hive is a searing drama based on the true story of a mother who has lived with fading hope and burgeoning grief since her husband went missing during the war in Eastern Europe.
Fire in the Mountains (2022)
In a breathtakingly beautiful Himalayan community, a mother toils to save money to build a road in a Himalayan village to take her wheelchair-bound son for physiotherapy, but her husband who believes that a shamanic ritual (Jagar) is the remedy, steals her savings.
The Tree (2010)
Charlotte Gainsbourg stars in Julie Bertuccelli’s achingly beautiful mystical drama of loss and rebirth in the Australian countryside. Blindsided by her husband’s sudden death, Dawn and her four young children struggle to make sense of life without him. Eight-year-old Simone becomes convinced that her father is whispering through the leaves of the gargantuan fig tree that towers over their house.
Momma's Man (2008)
Bumped from a flight back to Los Angeles, Mikey returns to his childhood home, a cluttered, cocoon-like Manhattan loft presided over by his bohemian parents. Re-installed in a household saturated with two generations of bric-a-brac evoking days gone by, Mikey starts to regress and drift back to an awkward youth he never outgrew.
Working Woman (2018)
This beautifully performed drama about the everyday struggles of being female in the workplace follows a mother of three who tries to balance her home life with the demands of her career. But when she begins to experience sexual harassment from her boss, her rapid rise seems to parallel a pattern of predatory behavior which ultimately brings her career and marital relationship to the brink.
Fatima (2015)
Winner of the 2016 Cesar Award for Best Picture and Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival, Fatima offers an uplifting and moving portrait of the immigrant experience. To ensure the best future for her daughters, Fatima works odd hours as a cleaning woman. Frustrated by her interactions with them, she begins to write in Arabic thoughts she has never been able to express in French.