Valerie Gudenus gets to the complicated heart of the surrogacy industry in India, travelling to slums where women are recruited and into wards where they’re kept like well-fed prisoners for nine months. With stigma still surrounding those who get paid to carry other people’s (often rich foreigners’) babies, these single, poor, and widowed women make huge sacrifices to their health, their own children, and their reputation in the hopes of making a few thousand bucks. The implications of class, gender, and global inequity run deep. Still, a nonjudgmental Gudenus shows the surrogates learning to read in the ward and holding out hope while they nurse their ever-growing stomachs. Thought-provoking, unsettling viewing on an issue as urgent as any on the organ trade in developing countries.

SFU, October 3 (11 a.m.); Vancity, October 5 (7 p.m.)