About this project

Dear Kickstarter Fans!

FIVE COUNTRIES, SIX BIRTHS, SEVEN BABIES is a multi-chaptered DVD showing homebirths in Guatemala, Costa Rica, France, the USA and Bermuda. It reminds us how simple and pure birth can be.

Filmed between 1994 and 2010, FIVE COUNTRIES, SIX BIRTHS, SEVEN BABIES has five short 7-15 minute chapters. It makes screening easy for classes, conferences and lectures. The entire program is just over an hour. The families filmed here are offering their most intimate moments to show what it takes to have simple, sacred, and satisfying births. Women, families and the health care community cannot help being inspired by this offering!

I have been attending and filming births for many years. It is clear to me that showing powerful images of mothers and babies at birth can reduce ignorance and fear of this natural process. And once fear and ignorance are reduced, a joyful, if not ecstatic, birth is possible! 

Our birth stories are the first stories of our life.  How we come into the world is incredibly important to our sense of self, our health, our relationships, and our legacies.  If mothers feel loved, supported, empowered, and capable of surrendering to the brilliant design of birth, it can wholly transform their lives, their partners' lives, and the lives of their babies. 

Now, with your inspired help, we can:

• video, sound and color edit, 
• solicit original musical scores,
• finish graphic designs for the jacket cover,
  
• replicate using eco-friendly packaging,
  
• and globally distribute this DVD.
  

If we exceed our Kickstarter goal, additional funds will only make the project better!! If we exceed our goal by a lot, we will begin the next project: MEN @ BIRTH.

SOME OF OUR OFFERINGS:

One of the most celebrated Birth Videos of all time!  BIRTH DAY is a documentary exquisitely capturing the beauty of a natural home birth in the lush mountain countryside of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.

Taped by the baby's grandfather, Georges Vinaver and narrated by the baby's mother, midwife Naoli Vinaver Lopez, we are treated to the birth of this family's third child and first daughter, Tamaya Okumura Vinaver.  Director: Diana Paul.

Miss Margaret lived all her life in Eutaw, Alabama, first as a sharecropper in the cotton fields and then as a highly regarded midwife. She attended over 3,500 home births and never lost a mother. There were times she delivered four babies a night. Prayer and motherwit were the main tools in her birth bag. "They know what they've got to do," she said, "if you know how to talk to them. Give 'em love and kind words. That beats it all."  Director: Diana Paul.

Well, as of 2011, the USA is now 46th in the world for infant mortality.  This shirt is sure to spark conversations with the public about the state of birth in this technological age.

Our Motherbaby International Film Festivals have traveled the globe -- from the USA to countries like Bulgaria, Russia, Germany and South Africa.  Now YOU have the opportunity to host a private or public MIFF with your pledge of $2500 or more.  (Travel and other logistical expenses not included).

THANK YOU FOR HELPING US SHARE OUR MESSAGE...

:: LOVE DELIVERS! ::