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There is powerful movement that’s been taking root in Hollywood, and beyond, for the past 2 years. Many women, and some men, are standing up to say we’ve had enough of sexual harassment, assault, and unfair work place treatment. One of the ways we’re learning about what’s going on behind the scenes in Hollywood, is through documentaries like “Nevertheless.” Director Sarah Moshman has built a career on providing a platform for women to tell their stories.

After directing two short documentaries about female empowerment in young women, (Girls Rock! Chicago (2010) and Growing up Strong: Girls on the Run (2012)) Sarah directed her first feature doc called The Empowerment Project: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things (2014). That film has been screened over 700 times around the US and around the world in schools, groups, organizations and corporations starting conversations about gender equality. With Indieflix as the distributor, the film has been sponsored by major brands like Nordstrom, American Girl and Microsoft to spread this message far and wide.

Sarah’s second feature doc, Losing Sight of Shore follows the incredible journey of four women who rowed across the Pacific Ocean. The film was released globally in 190 countries on Netflix in May 2017.

NEVERTHELESS is Sarah’s third feature documentary which takes a look behind the headlines of #MeToo and Time’s Up to shine a light on the sexual harassment crisis. She shares details about why she wanted to make this film, and what the reception has been like when she seeks distribution. While it seems like things are moving in the right direction, it’s still an uphill battle to get female-centric movies made.

Sarah is creating change in the industry while juggling life as a mom of a 2-year-old with her husband.  She says the stories she wants to tell take on a deeper and more urgent meaning after something that happened to her when she was 6 months pregnant. She explains it in an op-ed piece here:

“Our neighbor approached us in front of our building one sunny afternoon and asked, “So do you know if it’s a boy or girl yet?” to which we politely replied, “Not yet.” Without skipping a beat, he piped up to say: “You know what? It’s fine. If you have a girl, you just have to accept that someday, someone’s going to fuck your daughter.” I think what bothered me the most about his sentence was the idea that this is something that would happen to her, she wouldn’t have any choice in the matter. It wasn’t that “Your daughter is going to have sex someday,” which as a parent is a lot to swallow, anyway. It was that someone was going to do this to her and she has no agency in this scenario.”

It’s the idea that women and girls are sexualized at birth, or even before birth, that drives Sarah to keep telling these stories. She hopes that people of all ages, and especially men watch her films and start to have conversations about this behavior. To find out more about Sarah and what she’s working on next, visit SarahMoshman.com.