Synopsis
In New York circa 1991, an orphaned teenage girl who was raised trading sex for protection meets an affluent couple desperate for a child. Sparks fly - and what starts off as a perfect utopian family quickly turns into an illicit nightmare.
CAST WISH LIST
LYNN
Christina Ricci
Julia Stiles
Alicia Silverstone
Taryn Manning
Tammy Blanchard
JOE
Adrien Grenier
Peter Facinelli
Josh Hamilton
Kevin Durand
Paul Schneider
NIKKI
Tim Realbuto (Attached)
Director & Screenwriter
Marina Shron
Marina Shron is a Russian born, New York based, writer and filmmaker. After earning her MFA in dramatic writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, she enjoyed a successful career as a playwright before turning to filmmaking.
As a writer, she has worked with Tony Pemberton on his feature film “Buddha’s Little Finger”, a German-Canadian co-production, released in 2016. Marina’s first short film as writer-director, Lullaby for Ray, starring Estelle Bajou and Alfredo Narciso (Homeland, Demolition), won awards and screened in festivals around the world, including Toronto and Cannes.
Her second film, Sea Child, premiered at the 2015 Fantasia Film Festival and screened at numerous other festivals. Both films are distributed by TV Shorts International, Play Festival Films, and Fandor.
Marina has received awards and funding for her work from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, James Thurber Foundation, and Fund for Mutual Understanding. A former Fulbright scholar, she teaches screenwriting at The New School, NY.
“I felt like an animal, and animals don’t know sin, do they?” ― Jess C. Scott
The script follows the collision course of three damaged people as their search for love and family twists itself into a stark reality. CHRISTINA, 15, is perpetually both adult and child, innocent and nefarious, mature beyond her years from a lifetime trading sex for protection. She craves love and takes it wherever she can find it – initially, from RAY, her father who pimps her out for drug money. He's the only family she’s ever known, and after his death from an overdose (which she facilitates), she is free to look for love in other places. She unexpectedly finds it in two strangers she meets by chance.
They are LYNN and JOE, a wealthy Manhattan couple in their 40s, desperate to round out their perfect existence with a child of their own. They too are not without their share of demons. Still, they offer Christina everything she’s dreamed of. For Lynn, who has recently recovered from cancer and a string of miscarriages, both real and imagined, Christina is the beautiful much-desired daughter. For Joe, she’s the promise of a fresh start - with Christina as part of the family, his relationship with his wife is revitalized.
But for all their longing, Christina has never had parents whose affection was free of sexual desire. Lynn's obsession with motherhood has never been tested and Joe cannot forget that he found Christina giving sexual favors on the street. Christina struggles to find her place within a family that’s held together by mutual benefit and co-dependence… But the stuff she is made of is so explosive - it gradually alters the fabric of the family. It’s not long before parental affection and sexual desire begin to merge.
And when the illusion of Christina's innocence is shattered, Lynn devises a new plan to see her dream made a reality. She elevates Christina's role in the family from that of surrogate daughter to surrogate mother, encouraging a relationship between the girl and Joe.... thus triggering Christina's dark journey of self-discovery.
In the film’s final coda, the tables are turned, once and for all. It was Lynn who embarked on the journey of motherhood – but it is Christina who gets to complete that journey.
.jpeg)
Set in a society where child sexual abuse is at once the biggest taboo, the terrifying reality, and the most lucrative enterprise, this film is a wake up call for all of us.
CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW TO MAKE A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION:
THE FRUIT OF OUR WOMB is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of THE FRUIT OF OUR WOMB must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.