One Culpeper County woman's story of becoming a mother will premiere at the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Colorado this weekend. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Dani Izzie and her husband Rudy were met with a surprise when they went to their first ultrasound appointment at the UVA Maternal and Fetal Medicine Clinic. Rudy asked the technician why there were two little blobs on the screen.
DANI IZZIE: She looked up from what she was doing and she was like, oh my goodness, that's because there's two babies. … It was like, shocking, but also, just felt like this amazing gift.
Shocking, in part, because Dani is quadriplegic, stemming from a spinal cord injury that happened 13 years ago. She had put a lot of consideration and medical consultation into having just one child, and now she was expecting two. With the help of the crew from Perpetuo Films, she documented her pregnancy, and her journey of finding confidence in motherhood, in the movie DANI'S TWINS.
IZZIE: In my early 20s when I was first injured and became disabled – seeing a story like this would have been so transformative for me … I want to make a movie that real people, like me, can relate to. And women can watch and feel empowered.
Dani gave birth to twin girls Lavinia and Giorgiana on April 24th, 2020. Because, as if she didn't have enough going on, this happened at the beginning of the pandemic – but you'll have to watch the film for that part of the story. It premieres at the Mountainfilm Festival this weekend, and you can catch it online during the virtual after-fest from May 31st to June 7th.
