THE EBONY CANAL is a superb award-winning documentary delving into the disturbing disparities of infant mortality and maternal health among Black and Brown women, weaving together powerful stories of healing and hope to inspire solution-driven practices that transform the future of maternal care.
Narrated by Academy Award-winning icon, Viola Davis, this seismic cinematic poem is directed by Emmai Alaquiva examines the historic portal between the disturbing disparities of infant mortality and the current state of the maternal health of Black and Brown women.
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What Critics Are Saying
The film not only highlights inequities but humanizes and is a call for dramatic action in the way that it tells the stories of Black and Brown mothers navigating birth, loss, and survival in a healthcare system that often fails. By preserving deeply personal journeys, from from conception through children’s first birthdays, it underscores collective responsibility to advocate for solutions.
It features interviews from a broad coalition of voices: Vice President Kamala Harris, actor-advocate Lamman Rucker, and experts like Kimberly Seals Allers (founder of the Irth App), Dr. Margaret Larkins‑Pettigrew (OB/GYN), and Charles Johnson, among others. THE EBONY CANAL balances emotional narrative with expert analysis, offering both empathy and strategy.
The Essence Film Festival is known for celebrating and sparking vital conversations surrounding Black maternal health. One panelist was quoted as saying, that this film “is a roadmap … It shows what happens when we listen to Black women, invest in community care, and demand systems change.”
THE EBONY CANAL is on tour.
the WORD Editor, Reviewer Gregg W. Morris