Eggs For Sale
“Eggs for Sale” is a dive into the world of egg donation through the lens of 26-year-old Emily, who is donating eggs for a fourth time. Emily, who started donating her eggs to finance her dream of becoming a pilot, is deeply appreciative of her ability to help others have children. But her body’s unusually painful response to hormone injections, paired with concerns over a lack of research on donor outcomes, leads her to reconsider her decisions and what has been asked of her.
Meanwhile, Erica and Daniel Ng raise the child they had long dreamed of, who was conceived using a donor egg. Reflecting on their grueling journey through infertility treatment and the joy of finding success through egg donation, they acknowledge the many complexities of using someone else’s genetic material, along with the sacrifices that had to be made to provide them with the opportunity to have a child of their own.
This film questions the long term impact of the hormones egg donors take, examines the lack of medical protections for donors while in the system, and considers the impact their decisions to donate can have for families like the Ngs.
Screens live on Saturday, Dec. 9
Q&A with filmmakers to follow
Filmmakers
Ava Anderson
Daniel Mendez
Twesha Dikshit
Ava Anderson was born and raised in New York City. After graduating from Williams College, she spent a year in Lebanon where she first began her journalism career writing for The Daily Star. Upon returning to New York, she worked at ABC and National Geographic on longform news and documentary series before coming to Columbia Journalism School to study documentary film.
Email: aa5055@columbia.edu
Daniel Mendez grew up in San Antonio, Texas before going to film school at the University of North Texas. After moving to New York City in 2010 he worked as a producer and editor at Vox Media and ABC where he discovered he had a passion for video journalism. After leaving ABC he decided to study documentary filmmaking at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Email: dcm2188@columbia.edu
Twesha Dikshit is a 23-year-old journalist from India. Before attending CJS, she studied journalism and film at the University of Southern California, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan. With a passion for international reporting and human-centered narratives, she hopes to work as an international correspondent in the future.
Email: td2750@columbia.edu
