Meryl Streep will narrate the feature documentary “Shout Gladi Gladi,” co-directed by Adam Friedman and Iain Kennedy and focusing on women’s health in Africa. The film has an emphasis on fistula, a debilitating condition that turns once-healthy women into outcasts. The documentary is being made in collaboration with Ann Gloag’s Freedom From Fistula Foundation, and explores Gloag’s experiences working with women in Kenya, Malawi and Sierra Leone. The film also features appearances by Melinda Gates and Nobel Peace laureate Wole Soyinka. Friedman will produce the documentary through his Vertical Ascent company; Gloag will executive produce. “This powerful film attests to the igniting power of one woman, Ann Gloag, to set in motion hundreds of helping hands, doctors, nurses, caregivers, family and friends, to resuscitate the health and status of victims of fistula, and to give them back their lives,” Streep said. The filmmakers noted that an estimated 2 million women in Africa live with obstetric fistula and more than 500,000 women die each year during pregnancy or childbirth, though 80% of these deaths are completely avoidable.
