The Devil Is Busy

As the director of operations and security of an abortion clinic in Atlanta, Tracii doesn't take any chances when it comes to the safety of both the patients and the staff. Executive Produced by Soledad O'Brien and Directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton, THE DEVIL IS BUSY is an eye opening on the ground portrayal of the shifting landscape for abortion providers in America.

  • Geeta Gandbhir
    Director
    The Perfect Neighbor, I Am Evidence, Black And Missing, Call Center Blues, How We Get Free, Born in Synanon, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, Hungry To Learn
  • Christalyn Hampton
    Director
    The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Born in Synanon, Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story,
  • Soledad O'Brien
    Producer
    The Perfect Neighbor, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Black And Missing, Disrupt & Dismantle with Soledad O'Brien, Hungry To Learn
  • Rose Arce
    Producer
    The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Black And Missing, Disrupt & Dismantle with Soledad O'Brien, Hungry To Learn
  • Amber Fares
    Producer
    Coexistence, My Ass!, We Are Ayenda, Gutsy
  • Tristan Nash
    Editor
    Hungry To Learn, Great Listener, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Outbreak: The First Response
  • Mikenzie Lewis
    Directors Of Photography
    Dear America, A Letter from Black Women,
  • Amber Fares
    Directors Of Photography
    Coexistence, My Ass!, We Are Ayenda, Gutsy
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    31 minutes 38 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 2, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • New Orleans Film Festival
    New Orleans, LA
    United States
    October 20, 2024
    World Premiere
    Documentary Short Special Mention, Audience Award Short Documentary
  • Doc NYC
    New York, NY
    United States
    November 13, 2024
    New York Premiere
  • The Pan African Film Festival
    Los Angeles, CA
    United States
    February 13, 2025
    Audience Favorite, Short Documentary
  • Santa Barbara International Film Festival
    Santa Barbara, CA
    United States
    February 9, 2025
    West Coast Premiere
  • Sedona International Film Festival
    Sedona, AZ
    United States
    February 27, 2025
  • American Documentary And Animation Film Festival
    Palm Springs, CA
    United States
    March 28, 2025
  • Full Frame Documentary Festival
    Durham, NC
    United States
    April 4, 2025
    Iris Tillman Hill Audience Award - Short
  • RiverRun International Film Festival
    Winston-Salem, NC
    United States
    April 13, 2025
    Winner, Best Documentary Short (Academy Award qualifying)
  • Florida Film Festival
    Orlando, FL
    United States
    April 14, 2025
  • Atlanta Film Festival
    Atlanta, GA
    United States
    May 2, 2025
  • The Palm Springs International ShortFest
    Palm Springs, CA
    United States
    May 28, 2025
    Audience Award: Best Documentary Short, Special Mention: Desert Views Local Jury
  • Brooklyn Film Festival
    Brooklyn, NY
    United States
    June 3, 2025
  • BlackStar Film Festival
    Philadelphia, PA
    United States
    August 3, 2025
    Jury Award Nomination for Best Short Documentary
Distribution Information
  • HBO
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
Director Biography - Geeta Gandbhir, Christalyn Hampton

Geeta Gandbhir embarked on her career in narrative film under the guidance of Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. After working for eleven years in scripted film, collaborating with renowned figures such as the Coen Brothers, Robert Altman, and others, she transitioned into documentary filmmaking.

As a Director, credits include the series "Born in Synanon" for Paramount, "Eyes on the Prize" for HBO, "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power," which was nominated for the 2022 Critics Choice Award, won a 2023 SIMA Award, and is nominated for two 2023 Emmys. She directed and show ran the series "Black and Missing" for HBO which won a 2022 NAACP Award for Best Directing, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Series, a 2022 ATAS Honors Award, and a Cinema Eye Honors for Best Series. She directed the film "Apart," with Rudy Valdez, for HBOMax, which was nominated for an NAACP Award and won a 2022 Emmy Award. Her short film from 2020, "Call Center Blues," with Topic Studios was shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards. She directed an episode "The Asian Americans" for PBS, which won the 2021 Peabody Award. Additional directing credits include the six-part series "Why We Hate" for Discovery, and "I Am Evidence" for HBO which won a 2019 Emmy, DuPont Award, and ATAS Award.

Her film "Armed with Faith" for PBS also won a 2019 News and Documentary Emmy, an episode of the Netflix series "The Rapture," focusing on rap artist Rapsody, "Prison Dogs," which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, and "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers," for PBS. She also played a co-director and co-producer role in the "A Conversation on Race" series in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs. This series earned recognition, including an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short, and a MacArthur Grant. She also co-produced the HBO film "The Sentence," directed by Rudy Valdez, which received a 2019 Primetime Emmy.

In her role as an Editor, her films have garnered two Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, and one Academy Award.

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Christalyn Hampton is an award-winning producer and casting director. Her most recent achievements include producing the Atlanta segment for the NAACP-nominated series Through Our Eyes: Homefront on HBO MAX, a feature documentary Rise and Rebuild: A Tale of Three Cities, and The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Peacock) earned her a Peabody, Gracie, and Television Honor. She recently collaborated with renowned filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir on two projects: a documentary on one of our most renowned entertainers and businessmen and a four-part docuseries that will air on a major streaming network.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The loss of 50 years of reproductive rights seemed inevitable in the Spring of 2022 when we set out to tell the story of how the upcoming Supreme Court decision would impact women’s lives. We had been talking to women seeking abortions, their health care providers, abortion opponents, everyone who would be touched by this decision hoping to document their life once this new world began to emerge. Yet, when it happened, we were
at a loss.

There is no “angle,” “device,” or “gimmick” to showing something as personal as what happens when a woman’s decision on whether to have a child is controlled by someone else. For two years following the demise of Roe, we shot with women around the country in settings that were both very intimate and very public, political and private, life-changing and routine. Yet, sometimes in film, what you are looking for is right in front of you.

One day reviewing footage from a routine shoot in Atlanta we kept stopping at an incidental character, a security guard named Tracii. Tracii is a deeply religious and humble woman who is fiercely committed to women’s healthcare. While seemingly adjacent to what’s happening inside the clinic, she is actually a last line of defense between a world of vulnerable women being treated by embattled doctors and the protestors politics outside that got us to where we are today. You can hear her praying on tape while you hear the emboldened protestors weaponizing religion in a way they know will create emotional pain. We decided that a day with Tracii about a year after the loss of abortion rights was a window into the new reality, a reflection of how morality and religion play a big role in the emotions unfolding at ground zero of reproductive rights.