Frozen Angels

Summary

"It’s easier to open a sperm-bank than a pizzeria," says Bill Handel, owner of the world’s biggest agency for surrogate mothers located in Los Angeles. No holds are barred in California’s reproduction dream world, the perfect child comes with the promise of college degree, manners, healthy genes, athletic body, correct gender and skin color, all chosen from a catalog. It’s a designer’s creation. Man plays God. There are egg-brokers always looking for attractive female co-eds, willing to sell their eggs. You can order sperm from Nobel Prize laureates, eggs from Mensa-Club-members and/or rent a womb from a young, healthy surrogate mother. This child could have as many as five "parents". One sperm donor could father hundreds of children in the same city: what if two were to fall in love?

In California there are more procedures possible and allowed than anywhere else in the world: free market rules and little control. Lori Andrews, prominent lawyer and author of The Clone Age calls it the "Wild West of medicine".

Following a cast of characters involved in the wonderland of human making, Frozen Angels examines the personal history of several Los Angelinos and their city’s role in this brave new world. "As filmmakers we are concerned," says Frauke Sandig, "because we see a minimally informed public, little critical media coverage and only a small window of time remaining for informed democratic discussion before it is slammed shut by the ever increasing weight and interest of the biotech industry who would like to have us believe the transition was inevitable."

"Everyone’s moral code is challenged,” says Sandig’s filmmaking partner, Eric Black. "Our purpose is to show the human and ethical implications of the biotech age. We propose to present these issues through a simple strategy: looking at the future already here - in the state of California."

Source: German films Service & Marketing GmbH