Julie Cohen and Betsy West knew they had to make their movie “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” about former U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords when, in their first video call with her, they saw that she and her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly, had kept a piece of her skull in a tupperware in their freezer. Right next to the empanadas.
“They showed that to us early on and we immediately were like, that’s a scene in our film,” Cohen told TheWrap, even though in the moment, their documentary didn’t yet exist. “We were just dazzled really by Gabby in particular from that very first wonderful meeting.”