Leslie Tai
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Grasshopper Film Acquires Non-Theatrical and Digital Rights to Birth Tourism Doc How to Have an American Baby
Grasshopper Film has acquired North American digital and non-theatrical rights to How to Have an American Baby, directed by Chinese-American filmmaker Leslie Tai, the company said in a press release. The company will release the film tomorrow, August 19, on digital platforms. From the press release: A decade in the making, the film is a haunting and intimate portrait of the shadow economy of Chinese birth tourism in the United States. With rare access and remarkable empathy, How to Have an American Baby takes viewers inside a hidden network of maternity hotels, expectant mothers, brokers, and medical providers operating at […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2025 -
“I Rejected the Concept of Linearity”: Leslie Tai on How to Have an American Baby
Sprawling in scope, observational in form and jaw-dropping in access, Leslie Tai’s How to Have an American Baby shows exactly what its title describes. The title is also the name of a sales talk one of the doc’s characters gives to Chinese moms with the financial means to travel and gift their future offspring US citizenship. The Chinese-American director takes her viewers on the wildest of rides through a birth tourism industry hiding in plain, sunny SoCal sight: underground maternity hotels run by shady operators and filled to the brim with expectant mothers, local hospitals employing doctors in on the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 14, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: How to Have an American Baby
We’re happy to share the first trailer for Leslie Tai’s debut documentary How to Have an American Baby, which next plays at the San Diego Asian Film Festival on Nov. 3 before making its New York City premiere on November 14th at DOC NYC and continuing on to Cucalorus Film Festival screenings on November 16 and 19. From the press release: a creative documentary that takes us behind the closed doors of the booming shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists who travel to the U.S. to give birth—in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their babies. Told through a series of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 25, 2023
