SPERMWORLD

Lance Oppenheim's 2024 documentary enters the unregulated space where online forums connect sperm donors with people hoping to become parents. Outside clinics, without contracts and often without payment, this network is followed through three men, among them Ari Nagel, said to have fathered hundreds of children. Oppenheim's interest lies less in biology than in the emotional accounting these arrangements produce: what the donors think they are, what the parents expect, what the resulting bond should be called. The film refuses to judge, which is both its strength and its limit. Nobody's motivation is fully explained; loneliness, generosity and a desire for control sit inside the same person. The visual language is as heavily stylised as in Oppenheim's earlier work, and some scenes look less like life than like an advertisement. Who it's for: viewers curious about the side of reproductive technology that spills outside institutional frameworks, and about modern loneliness. Who it's not for: anyone wanting orderly information on the legal and medical dimensions, or a documentary that takes a clear position.