Content warning: This interview contains mentions of mental health issues, suicide, and infanticide.
According to the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, one in five mothers will experience perinatal mental health issues. A whopping 70% of those will downplay what they are experiencing, which can lead to serious, and sometimes tragic endings. The website states that suicide is the leading cause of maternal mental health in the first year postpartum, and despite investment in the mental health sector, these numbers are not decreasing.
Witches, which had its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival this year, sees filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey recall her own experience with postpartum depression and anxiety, as well as the mothers around her whom she credits for saving her life. The devastating yet eye-opening documentary twins this with an exploration of witchcraft and how the representation of witches throughout history ties into our societal attitude toward not only mothers but women as a whole. Ahead of the film's release, FILMHOUNDS sat down with Sankey to talk about the taboos of maternal mental health, pitching Witches' unique concept, and what she learned while making the film.
The film begins with you talking about loving witches as a child and wanting to be a witch. What was your first experience with witches? Through books, TV, or film
There's something that I could show you – it's here in my messy office somewhere – a picture of me dressed as a witch for Halloween when I was around six years old. I've always loved them. I really loved Mildred Hubble (The Worst Witch) She was one of my favorites. I just liked everything. I liked the aesthetic, and I liked the sort of power that they seem to have. I like the femaleness of it, and I guess I liked the darkness. I really responded to that feeling of there being something special about being a girl. It wasn't related to what I was being sold – being a ‘girly girl' – it felt counter to that.
You speak candidly about the birth of your son and the mental health issues you experienced. What was it like to put that out there on film?
It felt very, very comfortable, to be honest. Being in the support group, Motherly Love – that I'm actually still part of – had been so helpful to me during my illness. Having other women talk about their experiences was a lifeline. I felt like this was just a continuation of that, so I never had any qualms over it. I think the people around me had more qualms than I did. They were like, “You've just got out of a psychiatric ward. Are you sure you want to do this?” But I really felt like this was something that I had to do. My therapist at the time was dubious about me doing it, but she had also said to me, “Look, in order for you to process what's happened to you and also accept that you had those thoughts and feelings about your child and about yourself. You have to talk about it. You have to process it.” But I don't think she was expecting me to set up a camera on a weird set and do it there. It was definitely a very therapeutic process for me.
It's lovely to hear that you're still in touch with the same mum group. All of your experiences are really not that uncommon, but it still feels so taboo to speak about. Why do you think this is?
I think the patriarchy has a big part in it. We have been sold a very specific idea of what it is to be a woman. You must be a mother, and if you are a mother, you must be this type of mother, and you must breastfeed, and your child must sleep through the night, and if you're not doing that, then there's something wrong with you. We have to have babies, but we have to work, and we have to work as if we don't have children. There's this constant noise and pressure on us about everything. We can't age, we can't be fat, we can't have too much sex, and we have to be married. It's just constant. When we think of the 1640s when the witch trials were happening in Europe, we think of that as a very puritanical time, but I think we live in an equally puritanical time now. It's just been dressed up differently.
All of that just makes women think, “Gosh, I don't want to talk about this” and what has been so fascinating about the film, is women are talking about it. At the Q and A's, there's a lot of women talking about this stuff, but they're also tragically talking about the people that they've lost to these illnesses. That's a very common occurrence now at the screenings, and I think that's what's so devastating. The UK is actually pretty good in terms of funding and the resources that we have. But we only have around 22 mother and baby units in England, and I don't know if we have any Northern Ireland yet. There's been so much in terms of funding, resources, and awareness building around these illnesses, and yet the suicide rates are going up and it's the leading cause of death for women in the pregnancy and postpartum period. So you kind of realise this is not necessarily due to a lack of access to funding. This is a real intrinsic societal issue in the way that we are making women feel about themselves, the way that we are expecting them to be, and the fact that they do not feel like they can talk about what's happening to them. That was what we were trying to do with the film – to give women permission to talk about this stuff and to hopefully share it with their friends. To use it as a resource for themselves, but also as a conversation starter. It's been so beautiful watching the film find its audience. There have been just as many men who've been really deeply connecting to it, not just mothers. Anyone who's had any sort of lived experience of any mental health illness can find something in that discussion.
Witches also touches on postpartum psychosis, something that many may not know exists let alone understand. What was that like for you to learn more about?
I didn't know anything about it at all. You get these questionnaires after you've had a baby about your mental health, and everyone was doing the checklist for me to make sure that I didn't have psychosis. And it was like, “Oh, thank god you don't have psychosis.” It's horrific and terrible to experience, but also it's something that there is even more shame and stigma around because that is the illness that can lead to infanticide. It's horrific when you think how often that does have tragic outcomes, and how tragic those outcomes can be.
Reading about it, I really felt like, “Wow, this is very witchy stuff.” There were so many allusions to the devil in modern women's testimonies about their illnesses, and so many feelings of good and bad, feelings of not being safe. It struck me that as women, we feel this all the time. We live in a world that is not safe for us. Look at things like the American election, and you realise this is a world that does not really like women very much. We're encouraged to not really like ourselves or each other. Perinatal psychosis was such a clear narrative in terms of depicting that. I could point to it and thought “That's actually how I feel a lot of the time.” Obviously, I'm not psychotic, but that feeling of paranoia, fear, feeling like you don't fit in, and that there's something wrong, really resonated with me.
The subject matter and looking at perinatal mental health issues through the lens of witchcraft and witch trials is very unique. How did you pitch the concept of Witches and did it meet any pushback?
I think it still gets pushback. I'm not an academic or a historian, I was finding connections to things myself while I was still very much recovering and still very mad. I like to say that this is a film made by a mad woman. It was coming from a place of trying to understand myself and trying to accept myself again. When I did find these cases of voluntary confessions of witchcraft where the women did seem to be suffering from postpartum mental health issues and had willingly offered themselves up to the witchfinder, it was a jaw-dropping moment for me. But I think I would have made this film about witches regardless because that was how I felt when I was ill. There was something dark and scary about me and I felt like that. I still feel like that now, except now I'm very accepting of it, and I like my darker, witchy side. I think it makes life more fun.
It's hard for me to remember why I made that connection initially. I'd been out of the ward for two months and I was very mad. I just wanted to watch loads of films about witches. When I was pitching it, MUBI were brilliant and they just got it. There was never really any pushback to the connection, they were always on board. As soon as I started putting things together and talking about it more, the connection came in. Especially for women, the witch is such a potent symbol of the patriarchy in terms of controlling us and telling us how we're not supposed to behave. Conversely, the witch is so amazing for women, because she's very aspirational, and it is how we would maybe like to behave. I know I'd like to live in a cottage on the outskirts of the forest and be a bit scary. I also think it makes the film more palatable. There are many different ways I could have done this documentary, but I wanted it to be beautiful and like a spell book.
While a lot of what the documentary touches on is very heartbreaking, there is an air of hope in the ending. Following Witches' release, what would you like to see happen in the wider world when it comes to postpartum mental health?
What struck me in the making of the film was the realization that all the way back to at least the 1600s, women have felt shame and guilt about themselves in society. Regardless of whether or not they are mothers, they feel so much shame and guilt and they are comparing themselves to each other. Even in the 1600s they were saying, “I'm not a good mother, I'm not a good wife, I'm not a good neighbor, I'm bad, there's something wrong with me, the devil is inside me.” If I could, like, stop that shame and guilt from carrying on, that would be such a gift for all of us. So that's what I would really love. If we could unlock that and untie it from its grip on female identity, that could really help change things.
In terms of perinatal mental health, I just want women to know that they can talk about it. I don't want any more women to die, to be brutally honest with you. Anything that we can do to make women feel like they can talk about this stuff and that they're not alone is really important. But I do think that the patriarchy is not going to change anytime soon – we've seen that in America. Grassroots activism and women working together is what we need, and it's what we were trying to do with the film. We wanted to present a different way of being a woman in society, a different way of being a mother, being a witchy mother. Looking at films like The Craft and thinking, “Yeah, I want that whole thing continued”, other than, you know, poor Nancy (Downs, Fairuza Balk) being in the psychiatric ward. Even in old age, I want to carry on feeling like there's a sort of magic and witchiness about us.
Witches streams on MUBI from Friday, November 22
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Samaritans on 116 123 (24 hours a day), Mind on 0300 123 3393 (9am to 6pm Monday to Friday), and NHS Choices on 111 (24 hours a day).
