CWC Docs: The Other Roe

Wendy Eley Jackson is a distinguished writer, director, and producer in the television and film industry. She serves as a lecturer in Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Ms. Eley Jackson’s remarkable portfolio of work includes the Hallmark Channel television movie Napa Ever After, and the award-winning documentaries Welcome to Pine Lake for CBS and Paramount+ and Carterland for Amazon Prime. She has been recognized for her producing skills, earning the esteemed Producers Guild Mark (p.g.a) for her work on the critically-acclaimed documentary Maynard on Netflix, directed by Academy Award nominee Sam Pollard. Her impactful directorial works, such as The Invitation, have garnered global attention on the festival circuit, and her work has been honored and archived in the Smithsonian African American Museum of History and Culture. Currently, she is directing feature-length documentary projects like Protect and Serve with Martin Luther King III.

In addition to her creative endeavors, Ms. Eley Jackson is the visionary and founder of the Montecito Student Film Festival in Santa Barbara, which showcases student films from over sixty countries. She is the founder and principal of Auburn Avenue Films, which is recognized as a premier curator for content originating from Georgia and transitioning into Hollywood. Ms. Eley Jackson adapted the award-winning book 30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story of Jim Crow for the screen. Additionally, she is the co-creator and co-screenwriter of Ella and Marilyn, a limited series produced by Robin Roberts, Linda Berman, and Emmy-winner and showrunner Debbie Allen.

Laury Oaks is Professor in the Department of Feminist Studies and a committee member in the Health Justice & Community initiative in the Department of Exercise and Sports Studies; she is co-coordinator of the Reproductive Futures Research Cluster in the Center for Feminist Futures at UCSB. She holds a Joint Ph.D. in Anthropology and Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and has a longstanding interest in feminist health justice approaches to reproductive and sexual health. Her publications highlight the complexities of lived sexual and reproductive health experiences that are not systematically reflected in public policies. Recent books include The Salley Gardens: Women, Sex, and Motherhood in Ireland, with Jo Murphy-Lawless and Giving Up Baby: Safe Haven Laws, Motherhood, and Reproductive Justice.