Birth/ Rebirth Synopsis
Dr. Rose Casper is a hospital pathologist who prefers the company of cadavers to social interaction. She finds the idea of female biological reproduction distasteful, but is obsessed with its clinical processes, gestating materials in her own body in order to discover a way to bring the dead back to life.
Celie Morales is a maternity nurse and single mother whose life revolves around her precocious five-year-old daughter, Lila. Efficient and empathetic, she is passionate about helping women give birth in an environment where they feel empowered and listened to.
The worlds of these two women collide when Lila dies suddenly and ends up on Rose's autopsy table. The circumstances of the little girl's death make her the perfect human candidate for Rose's next experiment.
When Lila's body disappears from the hospital, Celie begins to suspect that Rose is to blame. She forces her way into Rose's Co-op City apartment and discovers her daughter, reanimated in a home lab but just barely clinging to life. Rose's experiment has worked. She's brought Lila back from the dead. The treatment however, is highly experimental, and the little girl's continued recovery is anything but certain.
Both women realize they will need to draw on each other's very different expertise in order to keep Lila alive.
Birth/Rebirth is a 2023 American psychological horror film directed by Laura Moss in their feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Moss and Brendan J. O'Brien, and is inspired by the 1818 novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Starring Marin Ireland, Judy Reyes, A.J. Lister, Breeda Wool, and LaChanze, the film follows a morgue technician who, after successfully reanimating the body of a young girl, must harvest biological material from pregnant women in order to keep her alive.
Birth/Rebirth premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 18, 2023, to positive reviews from critics.