Abby Epstein's Biography:

After years as a theater director, Abby Epstein has transitioned into being one of the most important new female voices in documentary film.

Epstein began directing plays in the 1980s in Chicago where she started her own theater company, Roadworks Productions.

In the late 1990s, she relocated to New York to helm the highly successful Broadway musical RENT.

Notable amongst numerous other credits is her involvement with Eve Ensler's seminal The Vagina Monologues, which she directed during its New York run as well as its North American tour.

Until the Violence Stops, her documentary about the global impact of Ensler's play, marked Epstein's move into filmmaking. It premiered at Sundance in 2004 and won an Emmy after screening on Lifetime. 

Epstein's second documentary, The Business of Being Born, also grew out of her connection to The Vagina Monologues, as it was instigated by former Monolgues actress Ricki Lake.

Shocked at the results of her own research into the birth industry, Lake asked Epstein to make a film about childbirth.

The resulting movie, The Business of Being Born, is a damning indictment of the American medical profession which reveals how it excessively and detrimentally intervenes in women's pregnancy and labor.

Characterizing hospital births as motivated more by the hospitals' financial and legal considerations than patients' wishes, or even best interests, Epstein's film makes a compelling case for a return to traditional (and often safer) midwife-assisted births.

For more information please refer to:
http://www.non-toxickids.net/2009/05/interview-with-ricki-lake-and-abby.html