Mother India

Jhuma and Niladri are an Indian couple who've been married for eight years, and they still don't have children. Apart from the sadness that this fact causes them, they also have to cope with difficult questions from family and friends. The subject keeps coming up again and again, and the couple is spared by no one. As a last resort, they visit a fertility clinic in the distant, ultramodern city of Hyderabad. It costs Niladri an arm and a leg, but he wants very badly to see his wife happy. The two are interviewed both together and separately, but they are also observed without even realizing it themselves. It gradually becomes clear how traditional their environment is. Where they're from, working is unusual for women. A shrill contrast to the female manager of the clinic, who runs multiple branches throughout India and in the Middle East. Though the director doesn't pass any moral judgment, we also get to hear from surrogate mothers, who carry other people's babies for $2,000. Together with the results of the tests that Jhuma and Niladri undergo, their various experiences in Hyderabad will change their lives forever. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)