Fly So Far – UK Premiere
Wed 18 Jun 2025, 18:45
- Venue
- Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
- Price
- £5
- Event series
- The British Academy Summer Showcase
(2021, dir. Celina Escher)
87 minutes
With post-film discussion between Dr Rebecca Smyth and BBC’s Divya Talwar.
This is the UK premiere of documentary Fly So Far, which follows Teodora Vásquez and The Seventeen in their struggle to regain their freedom from prison in El Salvador. 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 sisterhood. 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.
After the film, British Academy-funded law researcher Dr Rebecca Smyth will discuss her project ‘Abortion, reproductive freedom, and sexual and reproductive health and rights: lessons from El Salvador’, which led her to this film. She will be in conversation with BBC investigative journalist Divya Talwa, who presented and produced the 2023 File On 4 documentary ‘When Abortion is a Crime’.
Pictured: Teodora Vásquez