‘Red, White and Blue’ Director on Why Getting Her Oscar-Nominated Short on YouTube Before Election Day Was So Important
With abortion on the ballot in several states in Tuesday’s election, writer and director Nazrin Choudhury’s Oscar-nominated short film Red, White and Blue about a single mother searching for access to an abortion feels as timely as ever. The British-born multi-hyphenate doesn’t always see it that way.
“The upcoming election, in which abortion is such a key topic, means that people talk about this being such a timely subject. ‘It was so timely.’ Sadly, it feels like it’s timeless to me,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
“We seem to keep needing to tell this story. I keep trying to say ‘Oh, let’s try and make it so that my story becomes redundant, and we don’t have to make films like this,'” she continues. “But we have to tell stories of ordinary human beings and Americans at that.”
Red, White and Blue premiered for free on YouTube this week, Majic Ink Productions and Level Forward announced on Monday. “We are getting enormous response and feedback from it,” Choudhury explains.
The film, starring Brittany Snow and Juliet Donenfold and executive produced by Samantha Bee, follows a young single mother from Arkansas, portrayed by Snow, who is forced to cross state lines to find access to an abortion.
The film has been screened throughout the country strategically since its 2024 Oscar nomination, according to a release, with the aim of reaching voters of all political leanings. Getting the film out into the world ahead of Election Day took a village of professionals in film, public relations and more coming together to make it happen.
On Wednesday, students and faculty from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the Toll Public Interest Center participated in a national student-led screening and moderated discussion event featuring Choudhury, Black Voters Matter’s LaTosha Brown, Professors Melissa Murray and Kate Shaw of Crooked Media’s Strict Scrutiny podcast and more.
“This event had been planned for a while and was deeply meaningful because I have teenagers who will inherit this legacy,” the writer and director says, explaining that it meant so much to be “in community” with students at UPenn and NYU through a live stream there.
“I think it’s really important because this is the generation that is going to inherit all of our mistakes. I think we need to break the cycle because what happens is we always leave it to them. They have to deal with the messes of their elders,” she explains.
For Choudhury, making this film was both important and deeply personal. She explains that she made the film on her own, asking her children if she could dip into the college savings she had been accumulating. The filmmaker says the team has taken Red, White and Blue to church communities in places like Arizona and Wisconsin. As Choudhury describes it, “Places where you think people would be resistant to having this conversation,” however, she has found people are not unwilling to open up dialogue about abortion.
“Our primary goal has been just to try and figure out which communities to take it to doing these benefit screenings, and then yes, in this final push where our futures as women will be decided at the ballot box” Choudhury begins.
“When the VP, Kamala Harris, says women are bleeding out… as someone who myself was bleeding out, but luckily not in a parking lot, I was in a hospital being taken care of,” she continues. “I just really wanted to make sure that when we landed this film, it was with maximum power, potency and urgency.”
The short film will stream on YouTube through election week. Each view of the film generates a donation to the film’s Purple Parlor Fund, which benefits non-partisan organizations in reproductive rights, justice and the film’s impact campaign.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
