In 1951, a woman died in Baltimore, U.S.A. She was called Henrietta Lacks. These are cells from her body. They were taken from her just before she died. They have been growing and multiplying ever since. There are now billions of these cells in laboratories around the world. If massed together, they would weigh 400 times her original weight. These cells have transformed modern medicine, but they also became caught up in the politics of our age.
Direction
Curtis's signature archival collage builds dread without sensationalism.
Editing
Juxtaposing scientific triumph with family devastation is devastatingly effective.
Director
Adam Curtis
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
HeLa cells were used to develop the polio vaccine, gene mapping, and COVID research — making Henrietta arguably the most consequential unknown figure of 20th century medicine.
Curtis made this in 1997, a full decade before Rebecca Skloot's book brought mainstream attention; his focus on the family's erasure rather than scientific glory was prescient.
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