Free Stella Artois and cupcakes will be served.

The Edge of Joy is a documentary that follows an ensemble cast of Nigerian doctors, midwives and families to the frontlines of maternal care. Inside a maternity ward, the film chronicles distressed labors, deaths, and miraculous survival. Outside, lack of blood supply transportation and family planning are examined as causes of the cycle that kills more than 36,000 Nigerian women each year.
The central characters in The Edge of Joy are the people deep within the Nigerian culture who know its misconceptions, its limitations, but also its capabilities. Narrated by award winning journalist, Eliza Griswold, and featuring animation by Yoni Goodman, this portrait of pregnancy and childbirth shows the consequences of poor maternal health as it explores the nuances and complexities of bringing emerging health technologies to the developing world.

Dawn Sinclair Shapiro directed, produced and wrote the feature length documentary “Inside the Handy Writers’ Colony,” which aired nationally on PBS in 2008. She began her journalism career working for the award-winning news magazine program CBS News Sunday Morning. Dawn has worked as a Producer, Writer, and Online Editor for Tribune Broadcasting, CNBC, MSNBC, Dateline NBC, and Chicago Public Radio. Her new film, “The Edge of Joy,” about maternal mortality in Nigeria was called “eye-opening” by Global Health magazine: “‘The Edge of Joy’ is a timely rallying cry against women accepting the perilous status quo.”

Director Dawn Sinclair Shapiro will do a q+a after the screening.