Celina Escher’s documentary Fly So Far follows Teodora and The Seventeen – a group of women accused of murder because of having a miscarriage in El Salvador - in their struggle to regain their freedom from prison. Due to the criminalisation of abortion, they were sentenced up to 30 years in prison for having an obstetric emergency. Their testimonies and cases are evidence of the State’s violence against women, but also of collective resilience, solidarity, and sorority. Fly So Far is a reflection on a system that punishes women, but also about the possibilities of empowerment and resistance both from freedom and from jail.
 
This UK premiere will be followed by a conversation between British Academy-funded law researcher Dr Rebecca Smyth and BBC investigative journalist Divya Talwa. Dr Rebecca Smyth will discuss her research project ‘Abortion, reproductive freedom, and sexual and reproductive health and rights: lessons from El Salvador’, which led her to discover this film. Divya Talwa presented and produced the 2023 File On 4 documentary When Abortion is a Crime.