FESTIVAL DU FILM DE STRASBOURG 2010 2011 PUNTA DEL ESTE DOCUMENTARY & FICTION FESTIVAL
Director: Andrea Pfalzgraf Producer: Christoph Müller Writer: Andrea Pfalzgraf Genre: Documentary Country: Switzerland Duration: 50:03 Original Format: HD Photography: Emil Fischhaber Editing: Hedi Bäbler
Synopsis of the Film: «Children from the Sperm Bank» - a taboo and its consequences A film by Andrea Pfalzgraf
"I wish to know who the donor is" says 34-year-old Sibylle. She is a child from the sperm bank, thanks to the semen of an anonymous donor. At least one thousand children from sperm donors are born every year in Switzerland. Only five percent of these children are aware that that is how they were conceived. Sperm donations are still a taboo in Switzerland.
Even though - or maybe because - children from donations are wanted children they are often not informed about their background. Again and again something goes wrong and the children end up finding out anyhow. The demand for sperm donations is very large, in sperm banks as well as by private persons via the internet. In the documentary «Children from the Sperm Bank» Andrea Pfalzgraf tries to find answers to why the topic of sperm donation is still such a taboo in Switzerland. She sets out to find a couple who have been able to have children through a sperm donation, speaks to sperm donors about the motivation to donate and discovers how the search for the biological father can become an obsession. A quest bearing many obstacles as the topic is not readily discussed. One donor has already conceived 67 children and does not think of stopping any time soon. Yvonne and Roger are over the moon with their child derived from sperm donation and hope to have a second child from the same donor soon.
On the other side, Sibylle's story shows what can happen when a child believes to know their real father and only finds out as an adult, by coincidence, that the biological father is in fact an anonymous donor. Sibylle gets her hopes up when she finds a woman through the internet who was conceived in the same doctor's practice as she was. The film shows how the two young women meet for the first time and how they find out if they are indeed half sisters through a DNA testing.
Bio-filmography of the Director: "gekaufte Schönheit", 50. Min, 2001 "Der Jahrhundert-Postraub", 50 Min. 2002 "Der Wassermann", 50 Min. 2003 "Heimkinder", 30 Min. 2004 "Für diese Wunde gibt es kein Pflaster" 50 Min. 2009.
Annual Program Without Frontiers - Children of the Sperm Bank
