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Film's untold tale of midwives targeted as witches

Sarah Lilley & Alice Cunningham
BBC News, Suffolk
Sasha List A man operates a camera to the left of the image as Hannah Renton looks at it. Behind them is a beach and the sea.Sasha List
Hannah Renton co-wrote Gossip and directed it on the Essex coast

A new short film aims to unearth the untold stories of midwives and healers who were targeted as witches in the 16th Century.

Hannah Renton is the co-writer and director of the new film, entitled Gossip.

Ms Renton, from east London, shot Gossip on the Essex coast and officially launched the film on International Women's Day (IWD).

Ms Renton hopes the film, which will be shown across Essex and Suffolk, will encourage people to look at issues women still face today.

"The reason why the film is called Gossip is it's a word that is still very strong in our cultural minds, but the origins of the word were the women who accompanied women through birth," Ms Renton explained

"Then the meaning became just a female friend and slowly it came to have these negative connotations of women talk."

Contributed A still image from the Gossip film. A group of women sit and stand on a beach. They wear dresses, aprons and hats from the 16th Century.Contributed
Gossip tells the untold stories of witches as they really were - midwives, healers and women with knowledge and power

The project draws from the region's history of witch trials and the struggles faced by women of the time.

Ms Renton felt it was important to launch the film on IWD "not only because the film foregrounds women and their history, but because it speaks to IWD's political history and the idea that we cannot achieve women's liberation without radical change".

She also believed understanding women's history was key to understanding issues many still face today.

Contributed The Gossip actresses stand in a line, arm in arm, smiling at the camera. They wear dresses, aprons and hats in a 16th Century style. They are also covered in mud and dirt.Contributed
Ms Renton made use of actors from East Anglia as well as real NHS midwives, who were able to offer guidance for the film

"There are some parallels today; it's not the same at all, but the reason I used a contemporary title was to match that connection in a way, thinking to bodily autonomy, reproductive rights and gendered violence," she added.

"It's hard for us to imagine what happened then and actually in the making of this film I realised it's closer than we think... there's parts of the world that are not so different.

"I think our understanding of history, our connection to history, is such an essential part of how we move forward."

The film is touring from 28 March to 17 April, with screenings at The Quay Theatre in Sudbury, Suffolk Archives in Ipswich, East Anglian Folklore Centre in Colchester and more.

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