Mothership follows Thea (33), a performance artist in Brooklyn, as she joins a mysterious new fellowship
for high-achieving women. The fellowship supports couples on their parenthood journeys, providing fertility treatments, boutique mentorship, private education,
and above all, highly generous monthly stipends for two decades. The catch? The anonymous billionaire funding it all is also the baby’s sperm donor.
Thea is an aggressively unsentimental pragmatist, who finds the mere notion of being called “mama” cringe- worthy. Like many in their millennial milieu, she and
her boyfriend Kohji have avoided the subject of having children, focusing on other pillars of achievement first:
a PhD, a cute apartment, artistic fame. In the light of this new opportunity, a baby suddenly seems like their key to financial freedom and personal success. While some part of Thea suspects that this might be a devil’s bargain, she considers herself too savvy to be exploited... right?
Over the course of her pregnancy, Thea finds herself caught in a surreal world of parenting gurus, designer babies, and libertarian tech moguls with God complexes. As ethical boundaries are crossed and her relationship begins to buckle, Thea’s attempts to control her fate grow ever more tenuous.