When Christalyn Hampton found out her film, “The Devil is Busy,” was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film at the 98th Academy Awards, she screamed.
Awards weren’t something the Atlanta local was thinking about while making the film, which she co-directed with Geeta Gandbhir (also the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary feature “The Perfect Neighbor.”). So, getting short-listed and later nominated for the industry’s biggest honor was a huge surprise.
Hampton has worked in the industry as a producer for years, but this is her first time directing. “The Devil is Busy” tracks a day in the life of Tracii, the head of security at the Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation, an Atlanta abortion clinic, as she deals with clients, protestors, and the general anxiety of helping women get reproductive healthcare in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision that took away American women’s right to abortion.
“People need these kinds of stories, to hopefully motivate and keep the conversation going so that we can get past ‘the A-word,’ as the sonogram technicians say,” Hampton said.
Ahead of the Oscars, which air March 15 at 7 p.m. on ABC and Hulu, Rough Draft Atlanta spoke to Hampton about the making of the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I was reading a bit about your career, and I read that you spent a long time in the dance world before moving on to filmmaking. I was curious how you ended up making that transition.
Christalyn Hampton: I started in film – wow – when I was in high school in Atlanta, at Northside High School of the Performing Arts. I had an incredible career. I started teaching, because I was one of the few dancers – even in New York! – who never had a waitressing job. I just only danced or taught dance, or something in the arts to sustain my living.
When I was like, I don’t know if I really want to keep teaching, my friend Geeta [Gandbhir], who’s also the co-director of the film, was transitioning from editing and trying to go more into the directing/producing space. She asked me to help her with a grant, because I was receiving grants as a choreographer. It felt like a good fit for me. She noticed how organized I was [laughs] – she tells people I’m bossy. I don’t think I’m bossy. [Laughs] So she was like, oh, this might be something good for you. From there, I transitioned to working in film, and have been connected with some of the best in the business. So I’ve been very lucky in that way.
Yeah, I read that you and Geeta met each other in college, and that’s where that connection came from. But can you talk a little bit about coming onto this project in particular and how that started?
Hampton: I’ve been working with Soledad O’Brien Productions since 2021. I worked on the Rosa Parks documentary for Peacock, and that’s one of the first projects I worked on. But before that, Geeta had been working on a series with Soledad called “Black and Missing.” Geeta and I had been working on projects prior to me working at SOB, but that was the connection of how I came on – they had already sort of known who I was. I was working on a project that hasn’t come out yet, but I was already working on a second project with SOB. Because they were looking at stories in different parts of the country, and Atlanta was one of them, Geeta – she started with them initially on the project – was like, why don’t we bring Christalyn in to check out this particular clinic? They were just trying to figure out the best story and where the best impact was after the Dobbs decision. That was in 2022, and I came on and we did a test shoot. Then it sort of went away for a year and a half, and part of that is because in Georgia, there was a lot of back and forth between the Supreme Court and the governor and pro-life organizations that were really fighting for six weeks … Finally, when the dust settled, the governor and the pro-lifers won on a six-week heartbeat, that’s when we decided to go back and start filming.
I read that you looked at different clinics across the country, trying to figure out which clinic would be the best way to tell this story. I have to imagine Tracii herself had a lot to do why this particular clinic was the choice. Was she always meant to be the way that you found yourself into the story? Was there ever talk of following any of the clients, or anyone else?
Hampton: When we found this particular clinic, I was sent there just to sit with the team for like, a week, and just sort of get to see who they are, understand their routine. Of course, you have the protesters outside. Tracii is your first line of defense. When you arrive and pass the chaos and the aggression of the protesters, you meet Tracii. Tracii and I just clicked right away. I have never met someone that’s just so authentic to who they are, and they treat everyone the same. There’s no judgment. There’s no trickery, there’s no nothing. It’s just like, this is who I am. And how you see her in the film is how she is with everyone. I thought that was interesting. When she stopped and prayed, and got emotional because one of the clients got turned away – she was emotional about it because she felt for them. I was like, this is an interesting dynamic here.
The clinic is run by all women, mostly women of color. To me, that was also very important, as someone who constantly is looking for stories to empower and elevate women. I felt like that made it a good fit. We did not go in thinking it was Tracii, or just the clinic. At one point, we were talking about maybe following one of the guests, or clients, after they made the decision, or when they found out. We thought about different things, but we really realized that the routine and understanding what these women had to deal with on a day to day – we thought it was more important to just focus and stay inside.
I’m glad you brought up Tracii’s faith. I think that’s one of the more interesting aspects of the documentary, and something that you usually see manifest on the opposite side of things in the pro-life and pro-choice debate. It was interesting to see that manifest in a very different way than I think we’re used to thinking about this kind of thing.
Hampton: And we hope that women who are religious or faith-based see that you can help make decisions and … be able to find the humanity in what you believe in, but also the humanity in what other people are going through. I think that’s something that Tracii allows us to see. She really humanized the subject matter in a way that is unexpected.
There’s a moment in the film that really struck me – it’s to do with the protestors outside. I can’t remember who it was, but one of them looks directly at the camera and sort of directs the filmmakers as to what he thinks they should be looking at. I wondered if you could talk about what that experience was like, being observational with people right there who know that you’re making a film, and probably know how they’re going to look.
Hampton: We were acting more as flies on the wall, in that area. When they spoke to us, we were sort of like, wait! … But I think, for us, it was important for us to capture what a day in the life is there. So I think we just kept to that immersive experience for the viewers. We tried not to put our agenda on it. We just really used it as an observation.
Another thing that stood out to me is just how much – and you mostly get Tracii’s side of it, but I assume it goes both ways – these people know each other and see each other every day. She has a real understanding of who the protestors are.
Hampton: There is a familiarity between Tracii and the protesters. They talk to each other when they see each other. But I thought that was very interesting, because you would think that [it would be] them and us. But when you’re there, and they’ve been coming for [years]. When I was there in 2022, those same protesters were there. In a way, it’s their job as well as the clinic’s job to be there. I think you have no choice but to become familiar with them. Of course, there have been situations or altercations that probably have forced them to interact a little bit more. But I think it’s an interesting dynamic to have.
In the construction of this, obviously you’re dealing with Tracii and the people who work there, but you’re also dealing with clients who are coming in. You get into medical clearances, and private medical information, and then on the flip side of that, one of the doctors talks about this idea that she could be arrested for doing her job, if a mistake is made. I’m curious how you guys, as filmmakers, navigated those very sensitive issues.
Hampton: Again, I think that’s why it was important for me to spend a week without cameras at the facility to really talk to the leadership, who are incredible at this particular clinic, and talk them through what we were hoping to gather from filming. We came up with a protocol and standards that we had to go through before we can have cameras rolling. When the guests arrive, let them know what we’re doing. For those who wanted to be on camera, we spoke to them – went through a whole other procedure. We worked with our attorneys to make sure that we weren’t breaking any HIPAA rules, because it is a sensitive and vulnerable thing.
We started from talking to them, to when we were rolling with them, to when they went to sign in. And people could have changed their mind at any point, to not be on camera, not to go through the process with us. But we chose not to focus on the clients and their stories, because we felt like it would take away from really capturing the people on the front line.
I know you’ve worked in this industry and you’ve worked on different projects, but this is your first time directing, or co-directing something. What were some challenges that arose through the experience that you didn’t expect?
Hampton: [Laughs] I can say that I was conflicted in myself, because the producer in me wanted to do one thing and the director [wanted to do another.] I’ve worked with some of the most incredible people, directors and producers, in this industry, so I felt very secure and confident in going into it. And I think – again, I have to say this a third time – but I think because I was able to sit with the team, with the people in the clinic for a period of time – which a lot of people are not afforded to do that, you might have a phone call, or you might see them once, and then you’re rolling – but just to be able to understand their routine, understand who they are, it allowed a level of trust that I feel like allowed me to sort of navigate, and navigate my team.
That reminds me – I spoke to a documentarian last week, and they said something that stuck with me. It was that the most important thing isn’t necessarily money. Obviously money is important, and it gets you things, but the most important thing is really access, and you get access by building trust.
Hampton: You can’t work in a nonfiction world, really, without trust. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really try to sneak things in or change the agenda, shift it in a way to make people uncomfortable. When Tracii saw the film, she actually cried, because she was like, wow – this is my story. You captured my story in this way. And again, there are so many talented people at this clinic. You saw the doctor – she was talking about the idea of getting arrested. That really hit in a way that you don’t even think about. If you have private insurance, you don’t think your doctor could get arrested for providing a service that [you] might need. That hit differently. But Tracii just felt like a unique lens into the story that you don’t see – that we haven’t seen.
When you talk about the doctor saying that she could get arrested, she also said something that I hadn’t really thought about before, which was doctors might start moving out of these areas because they don’t want to risk it, if something were to happen.
Hampton: Which is really sad. I was talking to a friend in LA whose daughter is studying to be [an OB/GYN]. I was like, you should tell her to go to Emory, it’s a great school! Her daughter is afraid to go to a red state. She’s like, my daughter doesn’t want to be arrested. She doesn’t want to deal with the hypocrisy of weaponizing women because of race and sex. She didn’t want to do it. And I was like, ah, but we need you to come here and be part of the fight. But I understand it. I’m not a doctor. I can’t even imagine – the women at that clinic are so brave, to be able to do that day in [and out]. We see one day, and it’s more representative of a day, to understand what they have to go through on a daily basis. I don’t know a lot of women or men who could handle that with so much courage and compassion.
“The Devil is Busy” is streaming on HBO Max.