Made in India (2010)

In San Antonio, TX, Lisa and Brian Switzer sell their house and risk all their savings on a Medical Tourism company. This company promised them an affordable solution after 7 years of infertility. Across the world in Mumbai, India, Aasia Khan puts on a burka - not for religious reasons - but to hide her identity from neighbors as she enters a fertility clinic to be implanted with this American couple's embryos. These are the scenes that unfold as we watch East meet West in suburbs and shanty-towns, in test tubes and Petri dishes, in surrogates and infertile couples. MADE IN INDIA is a feature length documentary film about the human experiences behind the phenomena of "outsourcing" surrogate mothers to India. The film looks at a US couple whose struggle with infertility has led them to seek a surrogate mother to carry their child, and the Indian surrogate who chooses to carry their fetuses for a fee. What unfolds is a complicated clash of families in crisis, reproductive technology and outsourcing played out across cultures and countries. The outsourcing of surrogate mothers to India shows the extent to which reproduction has become a financial commodity, and how that commodity plays out in a global economy. By focusing on personal experiences, MADE IN INDIA uses real stories to draws out issues ranging from commodification of the body, notions of motherhood, emerging reproductive technologies, women's agency and autonomy, to interactions between those in the Global North and Global South. MADE IN INDIA explores the crossroads of body politics and global economics and the impact of one person's decisions on another. From the personal struggle of an Indian woman to support her family to an American couples struggling to have a child. This film reveals the legal and ethical implications behind their choices, and presents the conflict between the personal and the political dilemmas of surrogacy.