By Cailin Acosta
LA JOLLA, California – The Milky Way shown Friday morning, Feb. 7, at the San Diego International Film Festival is a drama directed by Maya Kenig. It tells the story of a single mother trying to make ends meet by selling her breast milk to a milk production bank.
Hila Ruach plays new mother Tala who has become pregnant after a non-committed fling. While trying unsuccessfully to become a singer and songwriter, she lives with her mother. The father-to-be, travelling to Cambodia, has no idea she is pregnant,
In a desperate attempt to make money, she goes to work for “The Milky Way,” a breast milk dairy that provides rich mothers with the best-quality breast milk from poor mothers. The employees are provided with high-quality nutrition and supplements to increase milk production. They machine pump their breasts a few times during their shifts. They are allowed to bring their babies who are cared for by nannies but the babies are given formula so their mothers can keep producing breast milk for the dairy bank.
Tala is caught smoking a cigarette and is fired. One of the milkmen offers her a ride home before making a delivery. She finds out from the codes on the bottles where her milk is being delivered. She sneaks into the residence and ends up meeting the new mother, baby and nanny.
They make a deal that Tala and her baby can move in with the family and pump for both babies instead of going through the milk bank. She makes enough money so that she can go back into the studio to record her songs.
Tala is caught nursing the other baby to stop his crying and the new mother asks her to leave.
There were parts of the film that were funny and parts that were sad. Tala felt less than human by being hooked up to the machines at the Milky Way. At the residence, she didn’t understand why the new mother refused to nurse her baby.
On a personal note, I am a mother who nursed and pumped for my twins until they turned 18 months old and then used all the milk in my freezer until they were 22 months old. I did suffer from feeling less than human but this period is a short time in life. I felt satisfaction from knowing my twins were getting the best nutrition I could provide for them.
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Cailin Acosta is the assistant editor of the San Diego Jewish World.