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When filmmaker Betsy White and her directing partner Julie Cohen logged onto Zoom for their first conversation with former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, they were nervous, West says.

For one thing, Zoom? It was April 2020, only a month into the pandemic lockdown, and neither West nor Cohen were comfortable yet with the video-calling app that soon would be ubiquitous.

West and Cohen, whose previous documentary “RBG” told the story of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also knew Giffords still struggled with her verbal communication as a result of the brain injury she’d suffered in a 2011 assassination attempt.

Gabby Giffords, center, the subject of the documentary film “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” poses with the film’s co-directors Julie Cohen, left, and Betsy West, Tuesday, June 21, 2022, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Gabby Giffords, left, and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., arrive for the world premiere of “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” at the Paramount Theatre during the South by Southwest Film Festival on Saturday, March 12, 2022, in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Jack Plunkett/Invision/AP)

After former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords was gravely injured in a 2011 mass shooting she eventually turned her attention the fight for stronger gun safety laws. She’s seen here during a speech in an image from the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down.” (Photo courtesy of the filmmakers)

Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly seen here in an image from the new documentary, “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down.” When the Arizona congresswoman was shot and gravely injured in a 2011 mass shooting she came back to launch Giffords, a gun safety advocacy group. Her husband Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 2020. (Photo by Dyanna Taylor)

Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2015 about bipartisan legislation on gun safety. Giffords journey from survivor of a mass shooting to becoming a prominent gun-safety advocate is told in the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down.” (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Emergency personnel work at the scene where Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., and others were shot outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Ariz. on Jan. 8, 2011. The new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” traces recovery and comeback to become a prominent advocate for better gun safety laws. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

Betsy West is the co-director with Julia Cohen of the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” the story of the former Arizona congresswoman, who after her recovery from a gunshot to the head became a prominent gun-safety advocate. (Photo by Kristin Hoebermann)

Julie Cohen is the co-director with Betsy West of the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” the story of the former Arizona congresswoman, who after her recovery from a gunshot to the head became a prominent gun-safety advocate. (Photo by Kristin Hoebermann)

Former congresswoman and gun violence survivor Gabby Giffords, right, speaks with Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., at a Gun Violence Memorial installation on the National Mall in Washington, Tuesday, June 7, 2022. The flowers are meant to represent the number of Americans who die from gun violence each year. A similar scene is shown in the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

President Joe Biden awards the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to Gabrielle Giffords, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Giffords is a former member of the House of Representatives from Arizona, who was gravely wounded when she was shot in the head in January 2011 during a constituent event in Tucson. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords is seen here riding her bicycle in a scene from the new documentary “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down.” (Photo by Dyanna Taylor)

“We were just wondering, ‘How’s this gonna work?’” West says. “And the Zoom call was amazing.

“I mean, the first thing that Gabby did was lift up her foot to the cameras to show us she was wearing RBG socks,” West says. “And it just went from there.”

“She was so charming and really together with her husband,” she says, adding that he was not yet a senator at the time of this first talk. “So I can just say Mark Kelly as opposed to Senator Kelly.”

Kelly, a former astronaut, was also open to the idea of a documentary on what Giffords and he had experienced since the Jan. 8, 2011 mass shooting that left six dead and Giffords so gravely injured that some initial news reports said she had died, too.

Giffords, who fielded questions via email due to the language difficulties of her aphasia, said the meeting also convinced her that West and Cohen were the right people to tell her story.

“There are always concerns when you welcome strangers with cameras into your home,” she wrote. “But making this film seemed like a fitting way to share my journey with the world and bring attention to the issues that are important to me, like gun violence and aphasia.”

West says she and Cohen knew the moment they disconnected the call that they wanted to make the documentary, which arrived in theaters this month with the title of “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down.”

“After that call, we were texting each other: ‘We have to do a doc about this woman!’ ” West says. “She was just amazing.”

The outlines of Giffords’ story are likely familiar. A rising star in politics at the time of the shooting, Giffords struggled to recover against long odds. Kelly, with the exception of piloting the final flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, was by her side throughout.

When she returned to the floor of the House of Representatives to cast a vote in August 2011, it was an emotional sensation. Since then, she’s launched the Giffords’ gun-safety advocacy organization. Kelly was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 2020.

“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” includes all of that, of course, but it’s a much more intimate and personal story overall, focusing on her recovery from the gunshot injury thanks to hours of videotape Kelly recorded during Giffords recovery.

“A little bit of this footage had been seen before in some news reports and things, but I don’t think we were aware of the extent of it, and how it really charts this extraordinary comeback that Gabby made from the earliest days when she’s lying comatose in the hospital bed,” West says.

“And then she’s awake, but she can’t talk,” she says. “How the speech pathologist worked with her day after day to slowly get her to regain some of her speech is extraordinary.

“To see that over time, we thought was fascinating,” West says.

Giffords, whose team of physical, speech and occupational therapists are the unsung heroes of her recovery, says she was glad to share footage of her time with them with the filmmakers, though it wasn’t always easy to watch.

“As for moments that were difficult, I think I struggled the most with the footage that Mark filmed in the hospital,” Giffords says. “I’ve come so far, but still it’s tough to remember the early days of my recovery.”

Those scenes can be difficult, though as with much of the film, Giffords and Kelly often display a lightness and a sense of humor even in the hardest times.

“She was incredibly open and we had just enormous access,” West says. “Gabby is an exuberant, fun person to spend time with. Julie and I were singing with her a lot because she loves to sing.”

She jokes that Giffords’ love of ’80s pop hits such as Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” which became part of the film’s title, forced them to increase the budget for song rights.

“Like she’s singing, ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ (by U2),” West says. “How can we not license that song?

“We really just had so much fun I don’t think we were anticipating.”

The sweetest moments in the film come when Giffords and Kelly are together and their love shines brightly on the screen.

They laugh together as they show the filmmakers a plastic container that contains a piece of Giffords’ skull, removed during surgery to save her life, that’s stored in the freezer with the frozen peas and ice cream. And they’re tender in small moments throughout the film: riding bicycles together in Washington D.C., working together on Kelly’s speeches for the Senate campaign, or simply sitting side by side at home.

“I loved watching the scene with me and Mark working on his speech,” Giffords says. “It’s such a fun glimpse into our teamwork and partnership. Betsy and Julie like to call their films ‘feminist love stories,’ and I couldn’t agree more.”

Kelly, she continues, is “my rock and my best friend. He’s also the funniest person I know – no one can make me laugh like he can – and I am so lucky to have him by my side.

“His unwavering support, kindness, and courage mean the world to me,” Giffords says. “Watching our relationship on screen gave me a peek of how others might see us, and it only confirmed what I’ve known this whole time: I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”

Those kinds of sweet moments gave West and Cohen plenty of material to balance with harder truths about the gun violence that nearly ended Giffords’ life.

“It’s a constant discussion,” West says of finding the right mix of material during the edit. “Often, we’re moving the scenes around: ‘Hey, we need a little Mark and Gabby here; we need to lighten it up. OK, now we need to introduce the tough time when Newtown happened, the shooting, and how that was such a turning point for Gabby, when she realized that she had a unique opportunity as a politician and a victim of gun violence.’”

The goal, she says, is to finish with a film that reaches viewers on many levels.

“We would just kind of move the pieces around to get the right balance,” West says. “I mean, you want to have a film that is entertaining, that is interesting. You find the balance by how you match and mix the scenes.”

It’s a sad fact that while the film includes references and footage from mass shootings in cities such as Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, in recent months the names of towns such as Uvalde, Texas and Highland Park, Illinois have joined the roll call of mass shootings.

Giffords says she’s not discouraged, pointing to the 460 gun safety laws passed in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown in 2012.

“Transformative change doesn’t happen all at once,” she says. “I know through my own recovery journey that it takes many incremental steps to reach your goals. If we gave up after every setback, there wouldn’t be any progress at all.

“When you’re surrounded by people who are fighting so hard to save lives, there’s no choice but to keep going and keep moving ahead,” Giffords says.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden awarded Giffords with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work on behalf of gun safety.

“When he first called me, I was stunned,” she says. “It’s a privilege to be recognized for public service, which I have dedicated so much of my to, and I’m so grateful for it.

“But I know this honor reaches far beyond me and speaks to hard work and dedication of the gun violence prevention movement as a whole.

“Without everyone in this fight, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

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