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Forty Dollars A Pop
TYPE: Documentary Feature
GENRE: Documentary
STATUS: Post-Production
LOGLINE
After donating sperm decades earlier, a happily unmarried man connects with his biological children, becoming head of an extended family he never knew he wanted and finding a romance he never thought possible.
SYNOPSIS
Forty Dollars A Pop follows Aaron Long, an unmarried man living a single life in Seattle. That all changes overnight thanks to a 21st-century combination of old-fashioned curiosity and cutting-edge technology.
Two decades after donating sperm for extra cash, he registers with a DNA-based ancestry site and discovers six known children.
Aaron invites several of his newly found children to spend time with him -- and shortly after, he’s dating the mother of one of his kids and forming a non-traditional extended family.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Forty Dollars A Pop tells a new kind of story, one that would not even have been conceivable until very recently. In looking closely at one non-traditional family, we get a fresh perspective on how the concept of family, and how the roles of parent and child are changing before our very eyes.
After Aaron shares his saga with The New York Times, the unlikely clan experience growing media exposure and diminishing privacy. And the more his story spreads — the bigger and more complicated it grows.
KEY CREW
Matt Isaac - Producer
Matt Isaac is the principal of Signal Brigade, LLC, which produces media projects, and Waveform Projects, LLC, which provides business development for film and media productions, arts projects, and cultural organizations.
He has participated in the production and funding of documentary film and television productions, and founded and was Executive Director of Perimeter Media + Culture Projects, a 501(c)3 cultural organization that presented film festivals (including the New York Animation Festival), media arts exhibits, educational workshops, and international arts exchanges.
Matt has served as a funding review panelist, a juror for film and media arts festivals, a presenter and moderator for public panels and discussions, and is a former board member of Northwest Film Forum.
Craig Downing - Director
Craig Downing has produced internationally recognized films for a variety of clients. Craig was the director of the film department at Iceland's Sagafilm, where he supported feature-length productions (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), music videos (Björk--Mutual Core), television (HBO's Game of Thrones), and commercial productions (Islandsbanki). Craig has also produced impacting documentaries for NGOs in regional "hot spots," including Haiti and Central America. He has has also produced commercial content for Amazon, Lonely Planet, The Discovery Channel, and the Seattle Department of Transportation. Craig served as the festival director for Couch Fest Films, curated films for the website Short of the Week, and was a film programmer at the Seattle International Film Festival. Craig is currently represented by Smarthouse Creative.
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The Gotham Film & Media Institute is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding, developing and celebrating the people and projects that shape the future of story.