look, they could have been robbing banks.

They chose to use all these skills and the sneakiness, you know, to help other women.

Hello, and welcome back to the Directors' Cut, brought to you by the Directors Guild of America.

In this episode, the story of the clandestine network that provided service for women seeking safe, affordable, and illegal abortions, is unveiled in director Tia Lesson and Emma Pildes' documentary, The Jains.

Screened as part of the DGA's documentary series, the film tells the story of The Jane Collective,

a group of women who used codenames, blindfolds, and safe houses in an underground service

for women seeking abortions in the years before the Roe v. Wade decision.

In addition to the Jains, Ms. Lesson's credits include the documentaries behind the labels

and Trouble the Water, the latter of which was co-directed with Carl Deal.

The Jains is Ms. Pildes' directorial debut and was nominated for the grand jury prize at the 2022 Sundance

Film Festival. Following the documentary series screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles,

Ms. Lesson and Ms. Pildas spoke with director Andi Timoner about filming The Jains.

Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.

I feel like we're just continuing the conversation because we just had such a wonderful dinner.

Yeah.

But I found so much of what you told me over dinner, I feel like a cheater, but I'm going to have you tell everyone now about it. So tell me about how this collaboration started. For you, Emma, it's your first, it's your directorial debut, but you've been a producer for a while now. And yeah, how did you come together and how did you work as co-directors?

So I have a family connection to this film. My dad is the lawyer in the film. Judith was his first wife. So my brother, I always feel like I need to get like a family tree out to explain this to people.

So if you don't catch on, don't worry about it.

But my brother, my half brother, I guess, started developing this in, you know, when Trump was elected.

So it was your father that you shared and you were from the second marriage.

And so his son is a producer, right?

And the phone rang in the movie, remember?

...