Onyx Collective and ABC News announced today a joint acquisition of award-winning documentary “Aftershock,” following its debut as an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The feature won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Impact for Change.
The documentary will stream as an Original film from Onyx Collective on Hulu in the U.S., on Star+ in Latin America, and on Disney+ in all other territories.
An alarmingly disproportionate number of Black women are failed every year by the U.S. maternal health system. Shamony Gibson and Amber Rose Isaac were vibrant, excited mothers-to-be whose deaths due to childbirth complications were preventable. Now, their partners and families are determined to sound a rallying cry around this chilling yet largely ignored crisis.
Directors Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee follow Gibson’s and Isaac’s bereaved partners, Omari Maynard and Bruce McIntyre, as they fight for justice and build communities of support, bonding especially with other surviving Black fathers. Their tragic, individual experiences are punctuated with condemning historical context, showing that gynecology has a long-standing history of exploiting and neglecting Black women in America. In the arresting words of mother-to-be Felicia Ellis, “A Black woman having a baby is like a Black man at a traffic stop with the police.” She emphasizes that paying attention is paramount.
Aftershock brings an unsettling reality to the forefront while uplifting the families, activists, and birth workers who are striving to bring institutional change and legislative reform. These mothers will not be forgotten.
Executive Producers: Dawn Porter, Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Patty Quillin, Jennifer and Jonathan Allan Soros, Tegan Acton, Emma Pompetti, Janet Tittiger, Davis Guggenheim and Rahdi Taylor.
ABOUT PAULA EISELT
Paula Eiselt directs and produces feature films about unforgettable characters thriving in unbelievable circumstances. Her passion for vérité storytelling about fearless trailblazers fighting for change resulted in the award-winning film 93Queen (POV, HBO Max). Now, with Aftershock, Eiselt focuses her intimate lens on the U.S. maternal health crisis to seek justice, reform and to keep memory alive.
ABOUT TONYA LEWIS LEE
Tonya Lewis Lee is a director, producer, and writer whose work through storytelling often explores the personal impact of civil rights and social justice issues. Lewis Lee produced, Monster, the adaptation of the Walter Dean Myers novel which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and currently streams on Netflix. Most recently, Lewis Lee co-directed and co-produced Aftershock, a film that examines the U.S. maternal mortality crisis though the lens of the lived experience.
ABOUT ONYX COLLECTIVE
Onyx Collective is a new content brand formed under Disney General Entertainment Content (DGE) designed to curate a slate of premium entertainment programming by creators of color and underrepresented voices. Onyx Collective ushers an exciting slate of content for a global audience, including debut project Questlove’s Oscar®-nominated and multiple award-winning documentary “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”; “The Hair Tales,” from executive producers Tracee Ellis Ross, Michaela Angela Davis and Oprah Winfrey; legal drama “Reasonable Doubt,” from executive producers Raamla Mohamed, Kerry Washington and Larry Wilmore; and limited series “The Plot,” executive produced and starring two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali.
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