UNDER THE SKIN
A NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM
The New York Times top health reporter Linda Villarosa kept a sepia-tone photograph from the 1970s of Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf, ages 14 and 12, folded up and tucked in her wallet, hoping to one day find them. The two girls had been operated on by a doctor against their will years ago in Montgomery, Alabama.
Linda had been told for most of her career that black people lived their lives much sicker than white people because they lacked access to medical care. That explained their higher rates of AIDS, maternal and infant mortality, heart disease, diabetes, and so many other ailments. Stories like those of the Relf sisters, pictured in Ebony magazine with freshly pressed curls and white lacy Sunday school dresses, made her think differently.
Nearly 50 years before she would finally meet them, they had been taken from their home without permission, painfully cut open, and sterilized without their parents’ consent, just like 100,000 other girls, most of them Black, Latina, and Indigenous under U.S. government programs that continued for decades. It was their very access to the American healthcare system that caused them to be scarred, traumatized and lose their ability to bear children of their own - not their lack of access.
““It’s no secret that Black people are subject to the cumulative effects of systemic racism. But Linda Villarosa’s Under the Skin walks us through the inevitable consequences of living in a racist country on our bodies, our environments, and our healthcare system”.
– CLAUDIA RANKINE, AUTHOR OF CITIZEN: AN AMERICAN LYRIC
“Under the Skin” is a documentary
exposé following Linda on her journey examining how Black people today came to “live sicker and die quicker” regardless of how wealthy or healthy they start out.
POTENTIAL STORYLINES:
Building on research from her groundbreaking book of the same name, Linda uses the powerful story of the Relf sisters as the beginning of our filmic journey to create a character driven documentary with many potential storylines.
THE PAINFUL HISTORY OF GYNECOLOGY
How the modern medical field of gynecology is a relic of excruciating experiments spanning from the slaveryperiod well into present times that affect outcomes for scores of black, Latina and Indigenous women from those who live in poverty to Serena Williams.
STATE SANCTIONED STERILIZATION
We will talk, for the first time, to victims of the statesanctioned forcible sterilization of hundreds of thousands of women of color who live with the results.
DEATH BY ZIP CODE
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
A STUDENT UPRISING
We tell the story of an unfolding uprising of courageous black medical students who refuse to treat patients based on unfounded, often racist pseudo-science.
“WEATHERING”
And finally, this documentary can connect the dots of how the cumulative effect of “weathering”, the concept of racial discrimination and medical bias in a society affecting the health of its citizens, impacts every single Black American today, regardless of class and education, who live with the accumulated stress of all that ugly history - and show the racial justice awakening in our country as people fight back.
LINDA’S STORY BEGINS
when she finds the Relf sisters now in their 60’s in Montgomery, Alabama while attending a parenting workshop hosted by a friend. She noticed the name card of one of the other attendees, Relf. She figured why not ask: “Would you be related to Minnie Lee and Mary Alice?” The young woman replied, “Yes, they’re my aunties – want their number?”
THE RELF SISTERS: MINNIE LEE, 14, AND MARY ALICE, 12, WERE FORCIBLY STERILIZED ALONG WITH 100,000 OTHER GIRLS IN OUR LIFETIME
UNDER THE SKIN
From 1907 to 1932, 32 states passed explicit eugenics laws that allowed for the government to sterilize the “insane,” the “feebleminded,” the “dependent” and the “diseased.” The Supreme Court upheld the laws, which would also inform Nazi Germany, where the Third Reich sterilized approximately 400,000 children and adults, mostly Jews and other “undesirables,” using a 1933 law modeled after legislation in the United States.
LINDA WILL USE THEIR STORY TO SHOW HOW THESE RACIST PRACTICES, SANCTIONED BY THE GOVERNMENT AND SUPPORTED BY SOCIETY, BECAME SYSTEMIC.
With Montgomery as a base, Linda takes us back in time to J. Marion Sims, the “father of gynecology,” whose forced unanesthetized experiments on enslaved black women inform modern medicine. He worked near the same spot in Montgomery where another of our characters Michelle Browder erected a statue to his victims and is raising funds for a midwifery clinic on his land.
Browder talks about this on a podcast called the Dose hosted by Dr. Joel Bervell, another character, who is part of a movement of young doctors rising up against medical schools teaching myths that date as back as far when Sims did his work. Their activism is based on a string of researchers Linda has interviewed that have unearthed evidence of experiments in the 1970s, then 80s and 90s that treated communities of color as a testing ground for social experiments.
J. MARION SIMS
Whether accurate or not, Linda tells the stories of how the results were adopted as social policies, written about by journalists, used as teaching tools in medical schools, and adopted by doctors as standards that hurt healthcare for black people.
Today Black people face doctors harboring false assumptions about how they endure pain, their lung capacity, blood coagulation, skin thickness or how they report illness, among other myths that affect treatment.
Under the Skin is a must- is a mustread for all who affirm that Black lives matter.” read for all who affirm that Black lives matter.”
UNDER
OTHER CHARACTERS INCLUDE:
ALEXANDRASTERN
PAULLOMBARDO
ProfessoratUCLA,FounderofSterilizationandSocialJustice Lab
ALETHAMAYBANK,MD
CATHERINECOLEMAN FLOWERS
ProfessorattheGeorgiaStateUniversityCollegeofLawin
Atlantaandauthorofthebook“ACenturyofEugenicsin America:FromtheIndianaExperimenttotheHumanGenome Era”
DOROTHYROBERTS
FormerchiefequityofficeroftheAmericanMedical Association
DOLENPERKINSVALDEZ
Alabama-basedMacArthur“genius”whosemotherwas sterilizedwithoutherknowledgeandconsentinthe1960s
DEIRDRECOOPER OWENS,PH.D
ProfessorUniversityofPennsylvania,authorofthebook “KillingtheBlackBody:Race,ReproductionandtheMeaning ofLiberty”andMacArthur“genius”
RUEBENC.WARREN, DR.P.H.
AmericanUniversityprofessorandbest-sellingauthorofthe novel“TakeMyHand,”whichisinspiredbytheRelfcase
HARRIETA.WASHINGTON
Authorofthebook“MedicalBondage:Race,Genderandthe OriginsofAmericanGynecology
DirectorofTuskegeeUniversityNationalCenterforBiomedical EthicsinResearchandHealthCare UCHÉBLACKSTOCK,M.D.
ColumbiaUniversitymedicalethicistandauthorofthebook “MedicalApartheid:TheDarkHistoryofMedical ExperimentationonBlackAmericansfromColonialTimesto Present”
Authorofthebook"Legacy:ABlackPhysicianReckonswith RacisminMedicine"
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY,
our documentary tells this American story through the eyes of a NY Times magazine writer and 1619 contributor whose seminal reporting on AIDS, maternal and infant mortality and other catastrophic health maladies dug into the little known secrets of the racism baked into the American health-care system and produced a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize finalist work that was named best book of the year by six publications.
LINDA VILLAROSA:
Linda Villarosa is a celebrated journalist, author and professor. Her work exists at the intersection of race, inequality and public health. Currently, Villarosa is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, where her reporting was featured in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project. Her 2018 cover story on infant and maternal mortality in Black mothers and babies was a finalist for the National Magazine Award. Her 2017 cover story “America’s Hidden HIV Epidemic” was honored with an Excellence in Journalism Award from NLGJA. She formerly served as Executive Editor of Essence Magazine and an editor and contributing reporter for the New York Times. She has been recognized with numerous awards from organizations including The Nieman Foundation, The Columbia University School of Journalism, The New York Public Library, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and The New York Association of Black Journalists.
DIRECTOR BIOS
SAM POLLARD
With a career spanning over forty years, legendary filmmaker, producer and editor Sam Pollard is a preeminent voice chronicling the nuances of the Black American experience. In 2020, Pollard received a career achievement award from the International Documentary Association.
Pollard’s work has been recognized with an Academy Award nomination, as well as The George Peabody Award and multiple Emmy awards. He has served on various advisory boards and committees, including The National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Independent Television Service (ITVS).
His latest film with Geeta Gandbhir, LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER, recently won a Critics Choice Award for Best Historical Documentary, as well as two Emmy Award nominations.
GEETA GANDBHIR
Geeta Gandbhir is an award-winning director, producer and editor. In her decades-long career, she has received an Academy Award, four Peabody Awards, as well as numerous Emmy Awards and nominations.
In television, Gandbhir has worked for PBS, MTV, Discovery, Court TV, Oxygen Media, HBO and many others. She is also currently co-directing and co-producing a "Conversation on Race" series withThe New York Times Op-Docs, which won an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Shortand garnered a MacArthur Grant.
She has been the recipient of a Ford Foundation grant, a MacArthur Grant, among others, and in 2017, she was the recipient of Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Chicken & Egg Award.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
SOLEDAD O’BRIEN
Soledad O’Brien is an award-winning documentarian, journalist, speaker, author, and philanthropist, who founded Soledad O’Brien Productions, a multi-platform media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on a range of social issues.
She anchored and produced the Hearst TV political magazine program "Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien" for 10 years and was a correspondent for HBO Real Sports. Soledad is also a thought leader, with over 1.3 million Twitter followers, who has a national impact through her speeches and numerous documentary films and is the author of two books, her critically acclaimed memoir “The Next Big Story” and “Latino in America.”
Her most recent productions include “The Rebellious Life of Rosa Parks,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, streams on Peacock, won a 2023 Peabody Award and was nominated for the Critics Choice Award. A multi-part series, “Black and Missing,” airing on HBO, won the Independent Spirit Award. Outbreak and Pandemic in Seattle, released on Hearst, the World Channel’s Local USA, and Yahoo, where it was awarded a Silver Telly. Other productions have appeared on Discovery Plus, CNN, BET, PBS, and others.
Soledad is the executive producer of Geeta Gandbhir’s “The Perfect Neighbor” which premiered at Sundance in 2025 and will be released by Netflix.
ABOUT SOLEDAD O’BRIEN PRODUCTIONS
Founded in 2013 by award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien, SO'B Productions specializes in developing and producing thought-provoking television and film content on the very issues Soledad has championed throughout her career. With an emphasis on character-driven storytelling, SO'B's work strives to amplify marginalized voices, while exploring pressing social issues like race, class, gender, and identity.
Our most recent work includes the documentary feature film “The Perfect Neighbor” produced by Message Pictures and also directed by Geeta Gandbhir, who won the award for Best Director when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She also co-directed our recent documentary short film “The Devil Is Busy” which premieres on HBO in September.
In 2022, SO'B produced The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and streams exclusively on Peacock. In 2021, the company created "Disrupt and Dismantle" for BET " , "Who Killed My Son?" and "The Prison Breaker" for Discovery+ and the HBO series "Black and Missing," which won best documentary series at the Independent Spirit Awards. SO'B has also produced multiple documentary projects for CNN and Al Jazeera America.
SO'B has also partnered with leading foundations to produce compelling documentary content, including the Ford Foundation, the de Beaumont Foundation ("Outbreak: Pandemic in Seattle) and the Conagra Brands Foundation ("Hungry to Learn").
