Documentary
Pacific Mother journeys from Japan, to Hawaii, Tahiti, Rarotonga and Aotearoa to share interwoven stories of formidable women who live at one with the Pacific Ocean – freediving, spearfishing and paddling waka through its depths and playing with their children in its shallows – a stark contrast to fast-paced lifestyles of larger towns or cities. These women are all mothers who experienced diverse births in hospital, at home and by the sea, with and without medical assistance. Fukumoto also meets Māori and Japanese midwives who share indigenous traditions and rituals around birth that have been lost over recent generations, and are now gradually being reclaimed. Their stories demonstrate just how disconnected the global default maternity system is from the instinctive and cultural needs of mothers and families. They inspire a call to action on birthing rights, as well as a call for parents’ reconnection with their role as nurturers and protectors of their natural environment.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
Fat-Topia
Two Worlds: Manatee and Lion Fish
Women & the Wind
Unrest
Bettina Rheims
Riding Giants
Shimmer
Message on a Bottle
Mabel
Walk the Tideline
Voices of Muslim Women from the US South
Drain the Titanic
Over Hawaii
Song 5
Dive to Bermuda Triangle
Feindbild Frau
Dolphins
Ocean Voyagers
Fragments
Rosies of the North
SIMILAR MOVIES
Fat-Topia
IMDB 6 | Aug , 2019
In an era of activism, filmmaker Connor Luke Simpson enters the world of Fat Acceptance, a provocative social movement that is seeking to change the negative perception of obesity. Is everything we know about obesity wrong, or, will this movement just become a footnote in the history books?Two Worlds: Manatee and Lion Fish
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2006
This planet of ours is Two Worlds: one of land and one of the ocean. This fascinating program explores a pair of marine animals, the manatee and the lion fish, and documents their interactions with each other, as well as with their habitat. We journey to an alien environment where man goes, at his peril, to meet the creatures which make this planet one. This is a feature length documentary edited together from episodes of the inspiring documentary series for physical release.Women & the Wind
IMDB 6.2 | Dec , 2025
Shot over the course of 30 days at sea, filmmaker Alizé Jireh documents the group’s voyage across the North Atlantic—from moments of stillness and calm to the chaos of storms and setbacks. With an observational approach and an eye for the emotional and physical rhythms of life at sea, Jireh captures not just the external landscape, but the internal shifts that come with navigating the vast unknown.Unrest
IMDB 6.9 | Oct , 2017
When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.Bettina Rheims
IMDB 0 | Jul , 2025
Whether famous or anonymous, stars or prisoners, models or sex workers, women have always been at the center of Bettina Rheims' photographic work since her debut in 1978. Both subversive and glamorous, trashy and sophisticated, her photographs mark and bear witness to the upheavals of the era, which this leading photographer both anticipated and accompanied.Riding Giants
IMDB 7.6 | Jul , 2004
Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.Shimmer
IMDB 0 | Jul , 2006
Join superstars Megan Abubo, Chelsea Georgeson, and Sofia Mulanovich as they create sparks in Indonesia, Fiji, Australia, and Hawaii. See rising stars Caroline Sarran, Veronica Kay, Rosie Hodge, and Carly Smith blaze trails at home and abroad. Watch longboarding's leading ladies Kassia Meador, Kula Barbieto and Crystal Dzigas charge glassy peaks from Waikiki to the Mentawais, their every ride infused with power, beauty and grace. And Roxy's own leading legend, four-time world champion Lisa Anderson, lights the way for an international team of gifted youngsters led by Hawaii's Carissa Moore, who shows us just how bright their future will be. As an added bonus, witness exclusive footage of the Roxy Pro Fiji - some of the best professional women's contest surfing to date. Lured from the shores of the world to shimmering seas, the Roxy team shines.Message on a Bottle
IMDB 0 | Apr , 2026
Mini-documentary about a man on a mission: to get rid of all the plastic in the oceans. To raise awareness for his mission he tried to kitesurf from The Netherlands to England, on a board made from disposed PET-bottles.Mabel
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2016
Feisty, fiercely independent and firmly rooted in place, 90 year-old Mabel Robinson broke barriers back in the 40s when she became the first woman in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, to launch her own business—a hairdressing salon where she still provides shampoo-n-sets over 70 years later. Weaving animation and archival imagery with intimate and laugh out loud moments in the salon, the film celebrates the power of friendship, doing what you love and staying active. With no desire to retire anytime soon, Mabel gives voice to a generation who are not front and center of cinema or the pop hairstyles of the day, and subtly shifts the lens on our perception of beauty and the elderly.Walk the Tideline
IMDB 7 | Apr , 2021
The movie follows today’s beachcombers in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Japan. The same endless piles of trash left by humans cover all the shores. Our shared ocean is loaded with time travelers made of plastic, the fruit of our throwaway culture and our indifference. They are the seeds of destruction, as they end up in the entrails of creatures living in the sea. Most of the beachcombers share the same worries about the environment. Beside the plastic trash, many travelers drift between continents, such as various plants’ seeds. Like all species, they look for new living environments where they could survive on a warming planet.Voices of Muslim Women from the US South
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2015
When one thinks of the American Deep South, the image of veiled Muslim students strolling the University of Alabama campus is the last thing that comes to mind. VOICES OF MUSLIM WOMEN FROM THE US SOUTH is a documentary that explores the Muslim culture through the lens of five University of Alabama Muslim students. The film tackles how Muslim women carve a space for self-expression in the Deep South and how they negotiate their identities in a predominantly Christian society that often has unflattering views about Islam and Muslims. Through interviews with students and faculty at Alabama, this film examines representations and issues of agency by asking: How do Muslim female students carve a space in a culture that thinks of Muslims as terrorists and Muslim women as backward?Drain the Titanic
IMDB 7.2 | Apr , 2015
Computer-generated imagery and other visualization techniques reveal how it would look if all the water was removed from RMS Titanic's final resting place.Over Hawaii
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2011
Go to the Big Island and hover above erupting craters at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, watch flowing orange lava ooze across charred rock and steam billow from the Pu'u 'O'o Vent. Glide over Maui's Haleakala National Park and discover the diversity of Hawaiian landscapes. Island hop to Lanai for spectacular beaches. Visit Pearl Harbor from above and the memorial sites before exploring the rest of Oahu. Narrated by Tom SkerrittSong 5
IMDB 4.2 | Mar , 1964
SONG 5: A childbirth song (the Songs are a cycle of silent color 8mm films by the American experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage produced from 1964 to 1969).Dive to Bermuda Triangle
IMDB 6 | Mar , 2004
There is a mystery there and the answer lies somewhere between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Miami. Hundreds of boats and planes have disappeared in the ocean with little or no trace at all. Most of these cases can be explained quite easily by human error or bad weather. But there are some that defy all explanation. Theories abound on these causes: Aliens, massive gas eruptions and freak waves. The documentary reveals that the boats and planes face a real danger in a triangle, but the true threat is often as strange as the wildest theory.Feindbild Frau
IMDB 9 | May , 2022
Women are sexually insulted and threatened by men every day. Experts around the world are registering an anti-feminist backlash that seems to be on the verge of becoming socially acceptable. Particularly affected: women in publicly visible positions – such as politicians, actresses or entrepreneurs. Who is behind the attacks and what are the motives?Dolphins
IMDB 5.8 | Apr , 2000
From the banks of the Bahamas to the seas of Argentina, we go underwater to meet dolphins. Two scientists who study dolphin communication and behaviour lead us on encounters in the wild. Featuring the music of Sting. Nominated for an Academy Award®, Best Documentary, Short Subject, 2000.Ocean Voyagers
IMDB 7 | Dec , 2007
Ocean Voyagers explores the familiar themes of motherhood and parenting in a world as unfamiliar as it is breathtaking. Featuring a precocious newborn humpback calf and his enormous 40 ton mother, we are taken on a journey of discovery into their world.Fragments
IMDB 8 | Jul , 2023
Women’s voices rise to deliver testimonies of victims of sexual violence. By reconstructing a story with these fragments of experience, a societal portrait is painted throughout the documentary. Like a mosaic, the pieces stick together to build a unique story that could belong to any human.Rosies of the North
IMDB 0 | Nov , 1999
They raised children, baked cakes... and built world-class fighter planes. Sixty years ago, thousands of women from Thunder Bay and the Prairies donned trousers, packed lunch pails and took up rivet guns to participate in the greatest industrial war effort in Canadian history. Like many other factories across the country from 1939 to 1945, the shop floor at Fort William's Canadian Car and Foundry was transformed from an all-male workforce to one with forty percent female workers.