Made in India

Year: 2010
Country: USA, INDIA
Run Time: 97 minutes

You might say this documentary describes a kind of extreme outsourcing. MADE IN INDIA shows the physical, moral, and emotional risks that middle-class Westerners and poor Indian women take when they sign a surrogacy contract. Lisa and Brian Switzer of San Antonio are an infertile American couple who have exhausted all other expensive and painful options of getting pregnant. Still, Lisa is determined not to give up on her dream of having children. After considerable soul-searching, the Switzers contact a California-based reproductive outsourcing business. Meanwhile in Mumbai we meet Aalia, the cheerful young mother of three who is contracted to carry the Switzers' baby for a price. MADE IN INDIA's two directors, American Rebecca Haimowitz and Indian Vaishali Sinha, go beyond sensationalist headlines to explore global issues of reproductive rights and social justice. Weaving together the Switzers' and Aalia's stories with interviews involving fertility experts and hospital administrators, they depict decisions made by families in crisis who look toward reproductive technology as a panacea. As might be expected when such divergent cultures converge, there are unforeseen complications. (In English and Hindi with subtitles) –B.B.

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