A feature documentary — in production
From Pain, Pursuit
It's as common as cancer and causes more infertility than any other disease, yet diagnosis requires surgery, and most people wouldn't recognize its name. A filmmaker with a decade of unexplained pain seeks answers from top researchers, the inventor of video laparoscopy, and a new generation of patient-scientists.
The stakes
Of global R&D funding goes towards non-cancer female-specific conditions.1
Women and girls are estimated to live with endometriosis or adenomyosis.
American women over sixty have had a hysterectomy.2
Endometriosis is a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside it. Lesions form in the abdominal cavity: on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, the peritoneum, sometimes on the intestine, kidney, or lungs. Adenomyosis is its close relative, where that tissue grows into the muscular wall of the uterus itself. Symptoms range up to severe pain, anemia, infertility, and intestinal issues. Both conditions run in families, but no gene has been found; theories range from environmental triggers to childhood microbiome imbalance. Neither disease has a cure and their causes are unknown.
Diagnosis still requires surgery.
Ultrasounds and other imaging often can't detect lesions — and even when they are visible, reading them requires a specialized radiologist. The gold standard for diagnosis remains surgery, which will miss the disease as often as half the time because the presentation is so heterogeneous. Patients frequently endure many repeat surgeries. The specialized care diagnosis requires, paired with a shortage of experts relative to the disease burden, means patients wait an average of 8 to 10 years3,4 for a diagnosis — if they get one at all — and care remains inaccessible to many. We don't even know the true prevalence of these diseases.
Non-surgical diagnostics for endometriosis are emerging in the United States — blood-based tests and a myoelectric test that could, if validated at scale, reduce a decade-long diagnostic odyssey to a single appointment. The filmmaker takes two of these new tests on camera and speaks with the researchers pioneering this work.
And almost nobody talks about it.
Marilyn Monroe. Venus Williams. Dolly Parton. These iconic women all suffered from endometriosis or adenomyosis. These diseases are everywhere, yet they have remained out of health education and public discourse.
The absence of meaningful progress on some of the most common women's diseases reflects not biological mystery alone, but the historic priorities of the male-dominated medical field. The reasons why are inseparable from the history of how women's bodies have been studied, dismissed, and misunderstood since the foundation of modern medicine. The word "hysteria" comes from hystera, the Greek word for uterus. For nearly four thousand years, from Hippocrates to Freud, the physical pain of women was dismissed as psychological instability, moral failing, or divine punishment. Until the NIH Revitalization Act was passed in 1993, women were not federally mandated to be included in U.S. clinical trials, meaning decades of medical data, dosing recommendations, and treatment protocols were derived almost entirely from male bodies. Even then, the act failed to mandate racial diversity, excluding women of color from a system that had only just begun to consider women at all. The diagnostic gap patients face today is not accidental. It is the predictable outcome of a system built on exclusion.
Synopsis
Why would some of the world's most accomplished scientists choose to spend their careers on diseases the medical establishment has deemed unworthy of attention or resources?
From Pain, Pursuit is a feature documentary investigating what personally drives the people leading women's health into a new era. The film centers on scientists and clinicians working on endometriosis and adenomyosis, diseases of the uterus that still require surgery to diagnose despite affecting an estimated one in five women and girls.
This neglect is common across gynecological conditions. Advances in research and medical care for fibroids, PCOS, and gynecological cancers are also hindered by a long history of underfunding, exclusion of women from medical research, and a stigma that has barred these diseases out of public conversation and medical education.
Investigating a decade of chronic pain and an inconclusive surgery, the filmmaker becomes the connective tissue between stories from inventors, researchers, and surgeons leading the field of diagnostics and treatment. The documentary uncovers that filmmaker and scientists alike are motivated by their own diagnoses, or the suffering of someone they love, which drives them to find answers.
Pain motivates pursuit. This convergence of personal experience and scientific expertise, of centuries of neglect and a present moment of possibility, is what makes this story both timely and cinematically rich. The film is a call to action: to fund science, and to build a future of evidence-based medicine for women's health.
Featuring
The people who decided these diseases were worth a career.
Dr. Linda Griffith, PhD
Director, Center for Gynepathology Research — MIT
Dr. Camran Nezhat, MD
Endometriosis excision specialist — inventor of video laparoscopy
Dr. Melsa Omaya, MD
Gynecological oncologist; postdoctoral fellow — UCSF
Ridhi Tariyal, MBA
Founder — NextGen Jane
Dr. Marina Sirota, PhD
Professor and Acting Director, Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute — UCSF
Dr. Linda Giudice, MD, PhD
Distinguished Professor and Chair Emerita, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences — UCSF
From production
Where we have been filming.
MIT
Center for Gynepathology Research
NextGen Jane
Molecular analysis of menstrual blood
UCSF
Gynecological disease research and interdisciplinary engagement
Kephera Diagnostics
Blood assay development for endometriosis
Dr. Camran Nezhat's operating room
Excision surgery expert
Director's statement
There is a silent epidemic as prevalent as cancer. One in three American women over the age of sixty has had a hysterectomy. The diseases behind that statistic touch nearly every family.
It is a privilege to speak with experts in women's health research, asking questions on behalf of every patient without that access. With so little research on gynecologic diseases, accurate information is hard to find. This is compounded by the absence of common diseases such as endometriosis and fibroids from health education, a stigma that keeps them out of conversation, and a specialist workforce far too small for the disease burden it addresses.
As both a patient and a science communicator, my responsibility is not just to connect my audience with the experts, but to serve as a conduit for complex medical concepts. I want this film to inspire trust and hope while maintaining transparency about the limits of what is currently known, especially when it comes to new products entering the market.
From Pain, Pursuit is already functioning as a catalyst for exactly the conversations it was made to begin. After screenings, women approach me to share their own stories for the first time, and friends later disclose diagnoses I never knew about. The silence around endometriosis, adenomyosis, and the broader family of gynecological diseases is the result of centuries of stigma, and it is exactly what this film intends to disrupt.
— Ruthie Zapol, Director
Ruthie Zapol understands that tricky but essential thing about storytelling: that to spark a conversation universally, the filmmaker must ground us in what is most personal. This is particularly difficult to accomplish when tackling vast medical systems, complex research, and the stigmatized study of women's health. But the film smartly finds the personal at every turn, as Zapol tells the story of endometriosis through her eyes and the eyes of scientists who have been directly affected by the disease. As she weaves their stories and the stories of their patients with her own, she captures a common truth — that of course, the medical is and has always been this personal. That there is actually no other way to think about it. The film not only challenges what we think, but how, and reshapes the conversations we will have about the disease and women's health moving forward. I can't wait to see it, and to see where Zapol's storytelling leads.
Recognition
Awards and support.
NYU Tisch — faculty juried
Lora Hays Award for Documentary Editing
NYU Tisch — faculty juried
Alan Landsburg Documentary Production Award
Women Make Movies
Production Assistance Program
Support the film
Your gift is tax-deductible.
To make a tax-deductible contribution, you may donate to the project via our fiscal sponsor Women Make Movies.
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Donations are processed directly by Women Make Movies.
Raising $250,000 to finish the film.
Contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law, and a confirmation of your donation is sent by email.
Checks must be made payable to Women Make Movies — written out in full, not abbreviated — with From Pain, Pursuit on the memo line, and sent to 231 West 29th Street, Suite 1006, New York, NY 10001.
Foundations & institutional funders
Restricted grants, impact partnerships, and the full production budget — get in touch and we will send materials.
Women Make Movies can also provide a letter confirming the film's 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsorship for grant applications.
A Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program Project
Established in 1972, Women Make Movies is a 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State. As the fiscal sponsor, WMM accepts donations or grants on behalf of the filmmaker and takes the responsibility of administering the funds received in support of the development and completion of the film.
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- Checks to
- Women Make Movies · 231 West 29th Street, Suite 1006, New York, NY 10001
Keep in touch
Hear how the film is coming along.
Occasional updates on the film's progress, and word when it is finished. No more than that, and you can ask to come off the list at any time.
Thank you — you are on the list.
We will be in touch as the film moves forward.Team
Who is making it.
Ruthie Zapol
Director
Ruthie Zapol (ruthzapol.com) is a documentary filmmaker focused on translating complex scientific and medical topics into emotionally grounded stories. A 2026 BFA graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she has directed documentary projects spanning genomics, climate science, and global health — including Genomic Frontiers Rwanda, created for Rwanda's first genomics conference; Buying Time for Coral, on climate adaptation research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Action for Women's Health, on healthcare innovation and early cancer detection in Rwanda. She interned with director Marielle Heller during post-production on A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) — the experience that first inspired her to pursue filmmaking professionally — and on Heller's Nightbitch (2024), and has since worked across more than thirty narrative and documentary productions. Ruthie brings to this project a track record of working directly with scientists and clinicians, a commitment to social justice storytelling, and nearly a decade of living with the diseases at the center of the film.
Tim Toliver
Cinematographer
Tim Toliver is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York City, studying film at NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a minor in anthropology. He believes in the camera frame as a tool for documenting and indexing human relationships — an approach that is central to this film's visual philosophy. Tim has interned at Proximity Media's nonfiction department and currently serves as a technical assistant in NYU's Production Center. He has shot two feature documentaries and numerous short films across narrative and nonfiction forms.
Tehrier Bhalla
Impact Producer
Tehrier Bhalla is a women's health advocate and emerging social work professional based in New York City. Originally from India, she holds a B.A. in Psychology from New York University and is currently pursuing her Master of Social Work at NYU's Silver School of Social Work. As a future clinician and educator, Tehrier's interests center on making women's health a routine and accessible part of health education, particularly for younger generations. She advocates for equipping young people with the knowledge to recognize women's health concerns, challenge stigma and misinformation, and seek appropriate care. Her long-term work aims to bridge social work, education, and women's health advocacy to create more informed and health-literate communities.
Matías Guibert
Sound Designer
Matías Guibert is an editor, sound designer, motion graphics designer, and documentary filmmaker based in New York City. He is a trilingual, multicultural filmmaker with a deep passion for representing Latin America, filming and working across its various continents. He has directed various documentary shorts and worked in post-production for nearly a decade, adding to that with years of experience at production houses People's Television and Sandbox Films working behind the scenes, and companies such as the Brennan Center for Justice producing social media videos.
Ronan Furuta
Colorist & Graphics
Ronan Furuta is a narrative cinematographer and documentary filmmaker based in Burlington, Vermont. He tells personal stories visually to create shared moments of reflection and discovery. He brings a rich understanding of cinematic language, attention to detail, and a focus on color science research to his work as a colorist. Ronan combines his graphic design education with his eye for composition and movement to create engaging 2D motion graphics. Along with being released on PBS, Ronan's work has played in festivals across the United States and Europe. Ronan is also the creator of FrameUp, a director/cinematographer viewfinder app.
Emma Hsiao
Animator
Emma Hsiao is a multidisciplinary artist and biologist with an interest in integrating visual storytelling with science and technology. Previous credits include The Chorus of Tongues (2026), an animated short film about amphibian decline, and freelance scientific illustration for several research labs across Harvard, Brown, Georgia Tech, and UMass Amherst.
Devin Fike
Composer
Devin Fike is a musician, producer, and composer based in New York and California. A graduate of New York University with a Bachelor of Music Technology, Devin creates screen scores that blend texture, synthesis, and orchestration to deepen a film's mood and message. His work includes scores for several NYU short films, Third Pole Therapeutics, and UC Berkeley, alongside freelance production work for independent artists.
Contact
Let's talk.
Funders & foundations
Production budget, grant materials, and partnership conversations.
Get involved
Living with these diseases, working in the field, or want to help the film find its audience.
Sources
- McKinsey & Company / World Economic Forum, Closing the Women's Health Gap: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and Economies (2020–2021 analysis).
- CDC, National Hospital Discharge Survey; summarized in Wu JM, Wechter ME, Geller EJ, Nguyen TV, Visco AG, "Hysterectomy rates in the United States, 2003," Obstetrics & Gynecology (2007).
- Ballard K, Lowton K, Wright J, "What's the delay? A qualitative study of women's experiences of reaching a diagnosis of endometriosis," Fertility and Sterility 86.5 (2006).
- Wykes CB, Clark TJ, Khan KS, "Accuracy of laparoscopy in the diagnosis of endometriosis: a systematic quantitative review," BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 111.11 (2004): 1204–1212.