Documentary Filmmaking

Girls Who Code and Moms First founder Reshma Saujani is screening her film, "No Country for Mothers," across the nation. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) Reshma Saujani knows that moms are a force to be reckoned with. That’s why she’s taking her new documentary on the road, screening it in front of hundreds of mothers at theaters and community sites across the country. "No Country for Mothers," which Saujani executive produced, highlights the societal forces shaping moms’ inequitable experiences and calls out the widespread lack of childcare support and paid leave. Saujani, who founded Girls Who Code and then Moms First to advocate for paid leave and universal childcare, told the Guardian that she is making her documentary available so that women can see how America makes it "impossible" to be a mom because they are constantly being pitted against each other. “We’ve been intentionally divided and distracted through culture wars, and mostly I think a lot by politicians, and now I would say influencers and tech companies,” Saujani said at a screening in Minneapolis last month. “And so I think that the only way to beat back the culture wars is to get moms to come together.” Specifically, the film shows how the “girl boss” and “trad wife” labels don’t do women any favors when so much economically is at stake. Through interviews with politicians from both sides of the aisle and with moms across the nation, the documentary tracks the decades of failures to enact legislation that would help cash-strapped families. One scene in the film shows then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump — who recently said it’s “not possible” for the federal government to ease the burden of daycare on families — giving a rambling, two-minute response when Saujani pressed him on childcare policy during a talk at the Economic Club of New York in September 2024. “Trump has never treated childcare as a serious economic issue with consequences for working families,” Saujani wrote afterward in an op-ed for Time. The film is being screened at local theaters, community poolhouses and libraries across the country. “They know that the moment that we choose our power over their blame, it’s over for them,” Saujani said, according to the Guardian. “This film is gasoline, and we are the match. So, let’s burn it down and build back America to what should have always been: a country for mothers.”

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