Google Baby is a journey across three continents telling the story of the up and coming baby production industry in the age of globalization.

Doron, an Israeli entrepreneur with a high tech background proposes a new service - Pregnancy producing. The pregnancy producer (as he introduces himself) provides customers with a cost effective solution using outsourcing of the surrogacy element to India as a way to lower prices. The preferred genetic material is selected by the clients from their computer: sperm and eggs are purchased on-line and multiple embryos are produced, frozen, packed and shipped by air to India - where they are implanted into the wombs of local surrogates. The customers arrive only at the end of the nine month pregnancy period to pick up their babies.

Today, technology has turned 'making a baby' into an act independent of sex. And globalization is making it affordable. All one needs is a credit card. Instructions can be found on YouTube.

Director’s Statement

I have a partiality for bulletin boards. During my fellowship at Harvard University, I noticed many posts on the campus bulletin boards offering $50,000-$70,000 for young, good looking, and highly educated women. I was intrigued by how technical baby making had become, and how pregnancy could be disassembled into its elements only to be put together again through an online mix-and-match.

The research and filming took nearly three years. As the work advanced I grew to realize that people are totally unaware of the fact that babies had become a commodity and it was becoming clear that globalization had a profound impact on the growing business of baby production. Local cost and legal obstacles are being addressed by an international global operation. We filmed in the USA, Israel and India, where we made three work trips over the course of the documentary. When we started filming in Dr. Patel’s clinic in Anand, India, she had 70 surrogate mothers in process. During our last filming session she had over 250 surrogates and other doctors in Mumbai started offering the same service. The field is obviously growing rapidly.

I can understand those who see the outsourcing of surrogacy to India, for a fraction of the price of western surrogates, as exploitation. However, after having spent considerable time in India, I am more inclined to accept Dr. Patel’s point of view and her feminist agenda as she perceives it. Dr. Patel believes that for these rural women in India, surrogacy is almost the only way to make a life changing move. They are transforming their lives and the lives of their families and children by making education and/or housing a viable option.

Yet this growing new industry also provokes a growing list of ethical questions. One example, that did not make it into the movie, was that of Manjhi, a Japanese baby girl born to a Japanese couple through a surrogate in India. Between the time she was conceived and her birth in India, the ordering parents divorced.  Neither the would-be mother nor the father wanted the baby and they declined to come pick her up from the surrogate house in Anand. The Indian surrogate who gave birth to Manjhi was being pressured by local authorities in India to take her as her own. The Indian surrogate did not want to take Manjhi as her daughter and the Clinic supported her in a legal dispute against the state. Eventually Manjhi’s paternal grandmother decided to take care of her and Manjhi made her way to Tokyo three months after her birth.

I endeavored to keep any personal judgment on my part out of the movie. People tend to have strong opinions on these issues, and what is perceived as salvation to some, is viewed as diabolic by others. The situation will become even more complicated, as I believe that in the future, surrogacy will not only be used as a last resort but rather as an alternative for women who do not wish to have stretch marks or might not want to be pregnant because of their careers.

I believe the business aspects of the reproduction industry are intriguing as well as frightening. With an absence of moral rules or ethics, the global economy is exploited to its full measure. Thus, with no existing legal barriers to overcome and lots of money to be made, the human reproduction industry is steaming ahead. A cold and distant business reality guided only by the principles of the free market dealing with the most sensitive of issues. I tried through Google Baby to provide a glimpse of what I believe is likely to become a major concern for humanity in the future.

Zippi Brand Frank

2009 Docaviv International Film Festival, Israel
Won Best Film Award

2009 Toronto International Film Festival, Canada

2009 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands

2009 Rehovot International Women's Film Festival, Israel
Special Jury Mention

2009 EBS International Documentary Festival, Korea

2010 DocPoint Helsinki, Finland

2010 Göteborg International Film Festival, Sweden

2010 ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival, Croatia

2010 Documentary Edge Festival, New Zealand

2010 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Greece

2010 South By Southwest Film Festival, USA

2010 Amnesty International Film Festival, Netherlands

2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, USA

2010 International Women's Film Festival in Seoul, Korea

2010 Indie Lisboa Festival, Portugal

2010 The London International Documentary Festival, UK

2010 Planete Doc Review, Poland

2010 Globale Film Festival, Germany

200 CinemAmbiente Environmental Film Festival, Italy

2010 Magnolia International Documentary Awards, China
Won Magnolia Gold Award for Best Social Documentary

2010 Shanghai Television Festival, China

2010 Traverse City Film Festival, USA

2010 St. George Brisbane International Film Festival, Australia

2010 Noordelijk Film Festival, Netherlands

2010 Kos International Health Film Festival, Greece

2011 Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, USA

"...A compelling documentary. An amazingly neutral hand as Ms. Brand Frank deftly avoids the clichés that typically materialize in any journalistic look at atypical reproduction."
THE NEW YORK TIMES

"...Brilliantly made, "Google Baby" raises scary questions of our time..."
Wieland Speck, BERLINALE JURY STATEMENT

"Brand Frank has a knack for gaining access to moments of powerful intimacy and anxiety. She elicits candid interviews and composes images that are worth a thousand words. The film swings from absurdity to profundity, and raises myriad questions..."
Thom Powers, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

"...Disturbing, confusing and thought provoking movie. Just as a documentary film should be."
Yediot Ahronot

"...The film takes you to a place that, if you weren't in this particular world you would never know it existed..."
DURHAM MAGAZINE