Three Lives & Birth Film

Name: Three Lives & Birth Film
Start: 2026-01-28T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-01-28T21:00:00-05:00
Location: 800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148-16ND, United States

Schedule

Wed Jan 28 2026 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148-16ND, United States | Philadelphia, PA

Three Lives
Referencing Gertrude Stein’s book of the same name, Three Lives is the first feature length documentary made by an all-woman crew. Following the publication of Kate Millett’s first book “Sexual Politics,” a milestone of the second-wave feminist movement, Millett assembled a group of women including Susan Kleckner under the banner of Women’s Liberation Cinema.
Millett and Kleckner present the stories of three separate women who detail their experiences and challenges with welcome honesty. Through interviews with Mallory Millett-Jones (the director’s sister), Lilian Shreve, and Robin Milde a complex picture of female solidarity emerges where the subjects reject a patriarchal model of society and foreground their identities as women. (Kate Millett & Susan Kleckner, USA, 1971, 70 min.)
Birth Film
Susan Kleckner’s Birth Film is a documentary focused on a home birth and the feminist implications surrounding it. The film follows Kristen Booth Glen and her husband Jeffrey, both lawyers who fought for reproductive rights, as they spell out their intentions for an alternative to hospital birth. Later Kristen can be heard discussing what’s on screen with her young daughter.
Made during the same period as Three Lives – and with some of the same crew, Birth Film is a parallel story that once again centers female agency in relation to social conventions. During the film’s premiere at the Whitney Museum several viewers reportedly became sick due to the graphic nature of the film. (Susan Kleckner, USA, 1973, 32 min.)
Introduced by Patricia White, Centennial Chair and Professor of Film and Media Studies and Coordinator of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Swarthmore College
Major support for Raw Material: The Art and Life of Susan Kleckner is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Additional support provided by Haverford College’s John B. Hurford ’60 Center for the Arts and Humanities; Lightbox Film Center; Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archive Research Center, UMass Amherst Libraries; and Public Trust, Philadelphia.