Three weeks after her son was born, Dea Kulumbegashvili returned to work. Determined to finish post-production for her latest film, April, while caring for her child, she described her return to the editing room as “a battle”.

“When we talk about female cinema, we do talk about equal rights or equal pay, but we don’t talk about things that make us different,” Kulumbegashvili says. “When you give birth, but you still need to finish the film, and you still want to finish the film, does our industry leave the space for you?”

In her experience, the answer was no. So, she made the space—bringing her son into the editing room with her while she worked. For Kulumbegashvili, it was no coincidence that the film she was working on, April, depicts the harsh realities of motherhood, childbirth, and the state of women’s rights in her home country, Georgia. 

The film follows Nina, an OB-GYN who performs illegal abortions for women and girls in the country’s rural villages. When a newborn dies during delivery, she comes under investigation and is scrutinized for simply performing her duty as a healthcare provider.

The story of April begins on the set of Kulumbegashvili’s first feature, Beginning. In the small, remote villages in eastern Georgia, women and children would come to the set, and Kulumbegashvili would speak to them over lunch.

“One of the biggest surprises for me was that these are women who are my age…and some of them have eight children,” Kulumbegashvili says. “They don’t really have much decision-making power in terms of if they want to have a child or not.”

Before she began to shoot April, Kulumbegashvili spent one year immersed in a maternity clinic—witnessing childbirths, surgeries, and doctors at work. This is also something that viewers of April will experience. Within the first few minutes of the film, an overhead shot captures a real, uncensored childbirth. Later in the film, a C-section is performed. And one of the film’s most pivotal moments occurs when Nina performs an abortion—a long, unflinching scene, and the only one in the film shot with a different lens. 

Kulumbegashvili says there was some debate amongst her team about the abortion scene—what should be shown, how long it should be. But she was adamant about depicting the abortion in real time—something that is incredibly rare to see on screens. 

“We never see it. It’s much more hidden than birth,” Kulumbegashvili says. “Because the film already deals with the subject of abortions that are hidden, illegal, I really wanted to look at it, and I really wanted to leave space also for people to create their own opinion.”

Making this film with the knowledge that it depicts the very real plights of women in Georgia wasn’t easy on Kulumbegashvili, who was pregnant during the shoot. “At times, it was very overwhelming for me, and it was very difficult for me to handle things emotionally,” she says. “It’s important for me that I made this film becoming a mother myself…I took it very personally, and my own hormonal exchanges influence the process and the film…I’m a female director, and this is part of who I am.”

While April had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and received the Special Jury Prize, and is now streaming on MUBI, it has yet to be released in Georgia. While abortion is technically legal in the country, it remains a huge taboo, and nearly impossible for women to access. Still, for Kulumbegashvili, daring to make this film and continuing to tell the stories that matter to her is her way forward.

“For me, the biggest political battleground is actually the domestic spaces,” Kulumbegashvili says. “The people that I know, their stories are small and the changes are insignificant and tragedies are sometimes so tiny that they went maybe unnoticed…I really want to be able to make films about those small tragedies that happen in living rooms or in kitchens.”

April is now available to stream on MUBI.