FESTIVALS:
* Krakow Film Festival (Poland)
* Haifa Film Festival
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Empty Room | Category | | Human Interest | | Year | | 2017 | | Country | | Israel | | Running time | | 69’ & 52' | | Format | | | | Production | | Shirly Berkovitz_ | | Director | | Shirly Berkovitz |
Four years ago, Irit (51) and Asher (53) were shockingly informed by the army of the most horrible news they could not have imagine in their worst dreams of their 25-year-old son Omri being killed in a military accident. Half an hour later Irit asked to extract his sperm. “It was a mother’s instinct”, she recalls.
Since then, Irit has lived the death of her son every day, all day long. Asher, her husband is angry about his wife’s choice to immerse herself in mourning. They do agree on one thing. Irit and Asher are determined to fertilize Omri’s sperm with an ovum donation, and with the help of a surrogate mother create a child from their son’s sperm and raise the child as parents There for producing a child in an almost artificial way. In a way playing god. They refuse to consider hard-asked questions of what fate awaits a child born orphan to parents who are his grandparents. This case is unprecedented in Israel and the world.
The film is an exceptional personal story that poses earth-shattering ethical-scientific and philosophical questions that concern us as a human society. Where do we draw the line between scientific development and creating new life? Does a dead person have the right to decide on the use of his organs? Moreover, what of the rights of an unborn child? This is a sensitive and intimate journey. A tragedy infused with hope and moments of laughter and black humor, deep sadness of a bereaved family trying to fight the courts and choose life.
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