By Bel Hernandez Castillo
In the crowded field of documentary shorts this awards season, the Oscar nominated The Devil Is Busy stands out not through spectacle, but through access and immediacy. Executive produced by award-winning journalists Soledad O’Brien and veteran producer Rose Arce, the film directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton offers a clear-eyed portrait of reproductive healthcare in America after the 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. directed by
The result is one of the most quietly powerful entries in this year’s Oscar race—and a reminder that the debate over reproductive rights is no longer theoretical, but unfolding daily at clinic doors across the country.
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it didn’t just change the law—it erased half a century of protections that women in the United States had fought to secure.
“It was really back at the end of 2022 that we started thinking. If this happens, if in fact Roe v. Wade is no longer the lay of the land, what could we do”, explained O’Brien on the urgency to “do something” immediately after the law was overturned.
“There is actually a very strong Latina connection to all of this”, Arce points out. “During the Supreme Court oral arguments Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked the question of the Court, “Will this institution survive the stench this creates?” Aware of the challenge ahead, O’Brien and Arce understood the mission and went to work producing the documentary. They approached the Ford Foundation and it was a Latina, Sonia Enriquez and Darren Walker who both said, yes to the funding. “Once we had the film, a Latina executive at HBO was the one that said ‘OK…I am gong to run this’.” The Devil Is Busy has been streaming on HBO Max since September 23, 2025.
Powerfully, the film arrives guided by Latina leadership behind the scenes, bringing journalistic rigor and emotional clarity to a subject that too often gets reduced to political slogans.
Filmed in cinéma vérité style, the 30 minute documentary short unfolds over the course of a single day, inside a women’s healthcare clinic in Atlanta. Tracii, the facility’s head of security, navigates the daily reality of protecting patients and staff amid ongoing protests and heightened threats – from security sweeps of the premises to escorting patients inside while safeguarding their anonymity.
For more than five decades, American women lived with the protections established under Roe v. Wade. The Devil Is Busy starkly contrasts that era with the new reality many patients face navigating restrictive state laws and an increasingly hostile climate surrounding reproductive care.
Rather than relying on political commentary, the filmmakers keep the camera trained on the human infrastructure holding the system together. Tracii emerges as the film’s emotional anchor—part protector, part counselor. The documentary avoids polemics in favor of observation, allowing viewers to witness the emotional and operational toll on the staff tasked with ensuring women can still access basic healthcare.
The film’s power lies in this juxtaposition: routine healthcare operating under extraordinary pressure.
At a brisk half hour, The Devil Is Busy is compact but potent filmmaking. In an awards season often dominated by sweeping global stories, this short opts for a focused lens on a single clinic, a single day, and a single gatekeeper standing between patients and the chaos outside.