The Gist:
A young couple embarks on the tumultuous journey of infertility, as they grapple with their disapproving families and disheartening jobs.
Synopsis:
One man plus one woman plus everyone’s favorite activity makes a baby, right? Niko and Shoshana make all the right grown up life choices to put themselves in a position to support a baby, confident it’ll happen immediately.
Niko’s ultra-Greek family demand grandchildren nine months after their wedding night, while Shoshana’s academic Jewish parents want them to wait until Shoshana is thirty-eight and Niko becomes a lawyer (spoiler: he has no interest.)
Niko and Shoshana have a hectic year of trying and failing to conceive, slowly creating a wedge between them. They get regular unsolicited fertility advice to just relax, try having simultaneous orgasms and stop being selfish and adopt a teenager. They eventually discover Niko is sterile without IVF. Niko and Shoshana internalize the infertility news very differently but need to come together and decide what to do next, just as both of their jobs come tumbling down.
"Its humor plays honest while also gently ribbing millennial culture as that generation grows into one of parenthood"
–BlackList Review
Why:
Infertility and IVF are becoming mainstream topics but their narratives tend to fall into a few tropes--that infertility is “stress-based”, it’s entirely female-based, or the couple struggling is older, dowdy, and not having sex.
Infertiles are frequently portrayed as “baby crazy” rich people who often play the villains. Infertile men, rarely depicted, are emasculated and desexualized. We want to separate the idea of sexual virility from fertility.
Many people doing IVF today are in their late twenties and early thirties. Our goal is to destigmatize infertility, while educating the audience on IVF in an engaging, hilarious, yet informative way.
"Strong comedic dialogue really helps to cement this indie dramedy's place among contemporary audiences."
– BlackList Review
10M+ BABIES HAVE NOW BEEN BORN VIA IVF
Project History:
This story is based closely on the experience of the writers, Alexandra Borowitz and Jeff Harris, trying to conceive in 2018 after years of setting their lives up perfectly for a very wanted baby. After an extremely frustrating year of cycle-tracking, which also bled negatively into their careers and relationships, they went to a fertility clinic and discovered that Jeff was born with CBAVD, otherwise known as a natural vasectomy, making IVF the only way they could get pregnant.
They began writing this film in the middle of IVF treatment as an escape and way to cope with their combined four surgical procedures, hundreds of needles and most of all, the fear that it would never work.
1 In 8 Couples Struggle With Infertility
FREE SEX BABY
Our Team:
Domenica Cameron-Scorsese – Director
Domenica’s award winning directorial feature debut, ALMOST PARIS, premiered closing night at the Tribeca Film Festival—later winning several awards including Big River Film Festival Best First Time Feature Director and the prestigious Beaufort International Film Festival Audience Choice Award. Her first short, A LITTLE GOD, received the Torchlight Short Film Award at the Woodstock Film Festival. Subsequent shorts, SPANISH BOOTS and ROOTS IN WATER also premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. (The latter played “Best of Fest” at Chicago International Film Festival and received three Maverick award nominations.)
Alexandra Borowitz – Writer, Producer
Alexandra Borowitz is a comedic author of the book Family and Other Catastrophes, published in 2018 by Harper Collins and optioned for TV by Revelations Studios. She has built her career in adtech with a focus on social advertising and has worked at a variety of San Francisco startups.
Jeff Harris – Writer, Producer
Jeff Harris has been obsessed with movies since he saw Pulp Fiction at the age of seven. He is a serial entrepreneur who founded two startups that were successfully acquired: Talkwheel and FanStream, both in the group discussion space. Since those acquisitions he has worked in tech, specifically with mobile apps and the gig economy and has satirized his background in the tech startup world for his writing.
Andy Burrows – Producer
Designer, composer, consultant, marketer, producer, but ask his friends and they'll tell you Andy is best known for "being rad AF just in general..."
On top of his work in video production, Andy has produced countless creative projects & experiences while consulting and generating assets for global brands.