According to one statistic that animator and filmmaker Chari Pere cites in her short film Miscarried, over 25 percent of pregnancies end in a miscarriage. Why do we hear about so few of them? It’s a traumatic experience that’s difficult to discuss and widely misunderstood. Her hope was that by bravely sharing her story she might inspire other women to come forward with their stories and realize they don’t have to suffer alone.
Sure, a miscarriage isn’t really a form of mental illness, but as a stigmatized secret that often carries great shame even though it can’t be helped, it creates a huge “unspoken” footprint on societal and cultural mental health. Chari Pere wrote and animated this “unspoken cartoonmentary” through the lens of her culture as an Orthodox Jew, hoping to spark conversation in the Jewish community and to help women realize that some of the great matriarchs all suffered miscarriages, and it is more common than we realize. Its bright and striking animation softens some of the more painful images of tears and biological functions.
Miscarried was adapted from a comic Pere created in 2017 that received a flood of responses because nobody was speaking openly about the topic of miscarriages. I know women who say they suffered trauma due to their miscarriage, and then a second trauma when they were ashamed to talk about it and couldn’t find any relatable resources. Miscarried is a simple retelling of one woman’s experience that will hopefully reach others and encourage them to open up about a traumatic unspoken experience, and I can’t think of many things more mental health-related than that.
You can watch Miscarried now for FREE through 11/3 in Shorts Block No. 5 of the virtual festival:
https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/6704b2b8dd02d60047462b6c/66f4621dfc390800dcddfe68
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