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Breast milk, blood, and sperm cannot be produced artificially. They are extracted from human bodies and collected in banks. The documentary film by Karin Berghammer (script by Barbara Eppensteiner) explores the question of who needs them, who receives them and what it means for us when our innermost becomes a commodity on a global market. The filmmakers go to laboratories, collection centers and banks, they talk to donors and recipients, meet experts and people affected. They look at how the body fluids are gathered and utilized, observe the technical and mechanical components of testing, processing and storing, and take an in-depth look at the everyday lives of the people who handle the fluids of others. The spectrum ranges from a prematurely born for whose survival breast milk was essential, to a patient whose medication requires at least 600 people to regularly donate plasma every year.
A private sperm donor talks about offering his services on an internet platform. He once even travelled more than 10.000 kilometers to make the dream of a desired child come true. Experts show how technical progress and digitalization have changed the way we deal with bodily fluids and reflect upon the issue of who profits and who loses in an online market of globally operating platforms that have profoundly impacted the exchange and trade of fluids over the past decade.
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