The tragic and grisly photograph--a woman on a motel floor, dead after an illegal abortion--stirred a nation and inflamed a movement. Now, LEONA S SISTER GERRI tells the powerful and thought-provoking story of the anonymous woman behind the image and how she became an extraordinary icon for the ever-controversial abortion issue. Through tears and laughter, Gerri Santoro s tale of desperation in the days before legal abortion unfolds in an intimate, unpretentious style (The New York Times) as told by her family and friends.

Gerri was a tree-climbing kid who grew up on the family farm, then a spirited adolescent, a young wife, and later the devoted mother of two little girls. But she was also a battered wife who suffered years of abuse before eventually leaving her husband and returning to Connecticut. There Gerri became pregnant by a lover who agreed to perform an abortion and then left her when the operation went awry. Nine years later, in 1973, Ms. magazine published the heart-wrenching photo, which even now cries out from protest placards as a potent symbol in the struggle for a woman s right to choose.

Directed by Jane Gillooly, rousing and all-too-real, LEONA S SISTER GERRI cuts through the leaden rhetoric of one of America s most divisive issues to pay respects to an extraordinary woman and her tale.

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Filmmaker Interview; Viewers Video Letters; Filmmaker Biography