Tyree Kelly stands in an empty parking lot in the Phoenix area, a faded Macy’s logo still visible on the abandoned mall behind him. He paces, checking his phone and leaving voice mail messages for the woman he is supposed to meet. But she never shows up. Which is frustrating for Mr. Kelly, given how in-demand he says his sperm is.
The scene is from “Spermworld,” a new documentary produced by The New York Times that came out on FX and Hulu last week. Mr. Kelly, a prolific sperm donor, was there to drop off his genetic material. Lance Oppenheim, the director of the film, was set up in the parking lot to get a wide shot of a meeting that never happened.
Mr. Oppenheim filmed several encounters between donors and recipients while exploring, as he called it in an interview, the “unregulated sperm donation universe,” an online marketplace of men like Mr. Kelly who offer their sperm to hopeful parents. The documentary was inspired by a 2021 Times article by Nellie Bowles about people who, during the coronavirus pandemic, turned to unregulated online donor groups to circumvent the high costs and short supplies at sperm banks and fertility clinics.
“This story is a very interesting melding of our political and cultural moment, but it’s also about tech and the ways in which social media is disrupting traditional industries,” said Kathleen Lingo, the editorial director of film and television at The Times and an executive producer for the documentary. “What you see in this film is people taking matters into their own hands, in terms of how they’re going to create a child.”
In 2020, Ms. Lingo connected Ms. Bowles with Mr. Oppenheim, who had previously directed short and feature documentaries for The Times, and suggested they collaborate. Mr. Oppenheim contributed reporting to Ms. Bowles’s article, and after the article was published, he worked with Ms. Lingo to turn the idea into a documentary.
Mr. Oppenheim and his production team joined Facebook groups where couples, and sometimes single women, searched for men offering their sperm.
People turn to unregulated online donor markets for different reasons: Some are looking for affordable alternatives to clinics and sperm banks, where the amount of sperm recommended for one pregnancy can cost thousands of dollars. Others want to get to know a donor before accepting his sperm.
As for the donors, motives vary. Some donate for free, saying they just want to help. Others, like Mr. Kelly, charge money. Others still get satisfaction from passing on their genes.
Mr. Oppenheim introduced himself to several donors and recipients and asked if they would be willing to share their stories on camera. It was essential, he said, to depict those first meetings. They often took place in isolated locations: empty parking lots, moonlit cul-de-sacs and shabby motel rooms.
“It was important to capture the awkwardness and the uncertainty,” he said. “I wanted the audience to bear witness to it and sit in the awkwardness until the conversation opened up.”
In most cases, the viewer is meant to inhabit the perspective of the donors and recipients. When they laugh, you laugh, Mr. Oppenheim explained, and when they feel worried, you feel worried. The stories in the film are meant to make viewers wrestle with the complexities of fertility and this era of technological disruption. There’s an inherent peculiarity, even danger, to meeting a stranger for his sperm. And though many recipients become happy parents, not every woman has a positive experience. “Spermworld” explores both sides.
When filming meetings between donors and recipients, Mr. Oppenheim’s small production crew would set the camera up to record a wide shot and would eventually move in closer as the subjects got to know each other better.
To help him accurately portray each person’s perspective, including women who opened up about their struggles to conceive, Mr. Oppenheim tried to foster connection with the documentary’s subjects.
“They need to trust me, that I’m not going to misrepresent their stories or their emotions or their lives,” he said. “And I need to trust them, that what I’m capturing is real.”
Alana Hauser, a co-producer on The Times’s film and television team, said she believed that most people have certain ideas of how parenthood, child rearing and family should look. But for many, that picture doesn’t come to fruition.
“This film is about what happens when those fantasies collide with reality and how you cope with that and change course,” Ms. Hauser said.
Stream FX’s “Spermworld” on Hulu.
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