Google Baby

Documentary Feature, Festival Favorites
D: Zippi Brand Frank

Conversations about outsourcing to India are no longer limited to software and customer phone support, as Israeli businessman and self-described baby producer Doron adds the stork to the list. We meet the enterprising Doron and his partner as they welcome their own $140,000 baby, Talia, who came from an expensive surrogate. Now eggs and sperm travel across continents to unite before being shipped to India for surrogacy. Hopeful parents can browse through donors online, often at Egg Donation Inc. One expects a comment on the exploitation of women or the ethics of brokering birth for profit here, but instead award-winning director Frank takes a balanced, very human look at the professionals and participants alike. The parents that never pick up their babies and the vat of 20-year-old abandoned embryos that for religious reasons cannot be destroyed provoke questions for some. But Frank unblinkingly presents everyone in the same light, as photographed beautifully by cinematographer Uri Ackerman.

Wednesday, March 17, noon, Lamar 3

This article appears in March 19 • 2010.

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