‘9-Month Contract’ review: Powerful documentary explores Georgia’s exploitative surrogacy industry

Dir: Ketevan Vashagashvili. Georgia/Bulgaria/Germany. 2025. 77mins.

The selfless love between a single mom and her teenage daughter is proven to be a fortress towards an typically exploitative and detached world in Ketevan Vashagashvili’s robust however shifting documentary. By way of the tales of 29-year-old Zhana Vakhtangishvili and her daughter Elene Kukhtinovi, who turns 14 in the course of the movie, 9-Month Contract explores Georgia’s surrogacy business, which takes benefit of the nation’s impoverished and determined.

The belief the documentarian has constructed down the years pays off 

Most audiences shall be lucky sufficient by no means to expertise a fraction of the battle confronted by Zhana, who grew up in an orphanage, however they’re more likely to join on an emotional stage together with her resilience towards the percentages. The movie has already discovered agency footing on the pageant circuit since its world premiere at CPH:DOX, the place it received the Human:Rights Award, exhibiting at DOK.fest Munich and is now in Sarajevo’s documentary competitors. Area of interest distribution or a streaming berth is feasible additional alongside the road.

The filmmaker has identified Zhana and Elene for greater than a decade, after beforehand taking pictures reportage about their lives when the pair lived on the streets of Tbilisi – footage she consists of right here. The belief constructed up through the years by the documentarian pays off by way of the intimacy she shares with the pair. Largely the themes speak as if the digital camera isn’t there, though there are moments when Vashagashvili turns into a confidante of kinds.

Moderately than supply lots of scene setting, Vashagashvili shortly introduces the primary manner Zhana has discovered to make ends meet: renting out her womb for $14,000. Now on her third surrogacy and her fourth c-section, the have an effect on on her bodily well being is operating deep, and that’s earlier than the psychological pressure added by attempting to maintain her newest being pregnant a secret from her whipsmart daughter and different individuals she is aware of as a consequence of stigma. “I’m solely doing this for you,” is Zhana’s mantra – however she shouldn’t be solely dwelling for her daughter however making an attempt, on some stage, to stay by her. And whereas Elene is assembly her mom’s excessive tutorial expectations, the scenario is more and more at odds with {the teenager}’s aspirations.

When the start must be induced early for well being causes, Zhana’s surrogacy turns into problematic and she or he is threatened by the surrogate father after refusing to flout the regulation to get the newborn out of hospital. Zhana enlists the assistance of a human-rights organisation to attempt to cease the surrogacy company exploiting others and, whereas extra element relating to the ins and outs of the social backdrop can be welcome, we actually really feel the trauma of her predicament.

The identical is true of Zhana’s makes an attempt to achieve social housing towards a difficult political background – one thing that has solely turn into extra turbulent because the movie was made. Regardless of her well being issues, being pregnant as soon as once more appears to current the one reply for Zhana, and the movie turning into ever extra compelling because the scenario unfolds.

Whereas a lot of Zhana and Elene’s life is difficult, Vashagashvili additionally has a watch for lyrical moments, whether or not it’s capturing the mum and daughter washing each other’s hair, enjoying within the snow or curling up collectively for the evening. The documentarian can be watchful by way of Elene, capturing reactions that her harassed mom doesn’t at all times discover – and it’s the teen’s potential as a catalyst for change for Zhana that involves the fore.