A Raw Tribute to Sexual Trauma Survivors

Recently Unstoppable, a Planned Parenthood initiative that promotes full equality for women and LGBTQ people, released a new animated film by Alexa Lim Haas that brings to life the fundamental belief that your body is your own.

Everyday, I is an animated exploration of the ways the trauma and threat of sexualized violence infiltrate the everyday routines of various women. It focuses not on the offenders' actions, but instead on the longterm reverberations their acts have on their victims' sense of self, freedom of expression, and ability to trust.

"I don't know yet what it is to feel powerful, but I am in the process of dismantling years of anxiety and paranoia from my own sexual trauma," said director Haas, who was selected by Filmmaker magazine as one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2017.

Haas, 28, is an artist and filmmaker from New York City. Her animated shorts Glove (2016) and Agua Viva (2018) both premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and were awarded with Grand Jury Prizes at SXSW. Additionally she has exhibited work at MoMA and on HBO. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

"Alexa's piece is a beautiful, raw tribute to survivors everywhere," said Elizabeth Bawol, senior creative director for Planned Parenthood. "The extraordinary power of her illustrations bring to life the words of the women who bravely shared their experiences

Planned Parenthood's Unstoppable invited emerging filmmakers to create short films to explore what it means to be unstoppable in the movement for women's equality.

The Unstoppablecollective of filmmakers, brought together by Tanya Selvaratnam, includes Mikaela Beardsley, Ima Diawara, Cynthia Hill, Shruti Ganguly, Sarah Lash, Alexa Lim-Haas, Tiffany Shlain, Ani Simon-Kennedy, Michele Stephenson, Stephanie Wang-Breal, and Natalie White.

Recently-released films from Unstoppable include My Body is My Own by Emmy and Peabody award-winning Cynthia Hill; The Natural Way by Ima Diawara; and I Told Them by Stephanie Wang-Breal.