PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Hagar Ben-Asher, director of the film Dead Women Walking.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

Filmmaker Hagar Ben-Asher talks about her feature film, Dead Women Walking, featured on the program of the 75th Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori strand. The film tells nine stories of women and execution in the United States – the story of the final days of a series of women on death row. In this interview tells us about the episodic structure of the film, the project’s origins as a web series and her choice of finally making it a feature film, and the delicate research project during which she interviewed a number of executioners.

Dead Women Walking: Told through nine moving vignettes, each anchored by a subtle, yet overwhelming performance, Dead Women Walking traces the final days of a series of women on death row, from two weeks before one inmate’s execution to mere minutes before another’s. As these narratives develop, the human toll of the death penalty—not only on the women convicted of violent crimes, but also on their families, prison officials, and ministers and counselors coaching them through their final days—comes into clear focus. There’s Wendy, for example, whose mother declines to visit her the day before her execution; Helen, who meets her 18-year-old son (Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders) for the first time since he was adopted shortly after her imprisonment; and Celine, who watches a documentary about her case and conviction while having her last meal.