Aftershock, one of the biggest films to come out of Sundance, has officially been acquired by Onyx Collective and ABC News following rave reviews.

As theGrio previously reported, Aftershock, a documentary on the maternal health crisis in the United States, took the Sundance Film Festival by storm when it premiered earlier this year. It went on to win the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Impact for Change and is now set to stream as an original film on Hulu in the U.S.

‘Aftershock’
(Courtesy of Sundance Institute)

The documentary specifically highlights how Black women are disproportionately failed by the U.S. maternal health system year after year.

The logline reads, “Shamony Gibson and Amber Rose Isaac were vibrant, excited mothers-to-be whose deaths due to childbirth complications were preventable. Now, their partners and families are determined to sound a rallying cry around this chilling yet largely ignored crisis.”

The doc then follows the bereaved partners of Gibson and Isaac, Omari Maynard and Bruce McIntyre, “as they fight for justice and build communities of support, bonding especially with other surviving Black fathers,” reported by Deadline.

Tara Duncan, president of Onyx Collective and Freeform, shared in a statement regarding the film, “‘Aftershock is an emotional and urgent story that demands our attention. Paula and Tonya have captured the resilience and will of Black families to ignite a positive impact on this national health crisis for women in America.”

In a statement, Kim Godwin of ABC News shared, “Aftershock is an essential and devastating documentary on the lived experience of pregnant Black women that immediately draws an emotional connection to the memories of the mothers who passed away. I’m incredibly proud to have ABC News Studios, together with Tara Duncan and Onyx Collective, shine a light on an epidemic affecting Black women in disproportionate numbers.”

The film’s directors and producers, Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee, recently sat down with theGrio‘s Cortney Wills to open up about their process and why they decided to center the film on the men who lost their wives.

Lee shared, “It’s because they’re the ones who were left behind. They’re the ones who have to raise their children and move forward…we met both of these men very early in their grieving process.”

Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee attend the “Benedetta” screening during the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival on July 9, 2021 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

She continued, “What’s it like for a man who’s lost his partner to suddenly have to raise a child on his own? How does he get support? Where does he go? How does the community support him? How does his family support him?

And then what does he do? I mean, obviously, we know the image of Black men in our society, and it’s so refreshing to be able to show how Black men really are. They are wonderful men.”

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