LOGLINE:

When an imaginative and anxious Broadway hopeful receives life-changing news, she is forced to confront her deepest desires and worst fears.

THE “WHY” BEHIND THE FILM:

Society throws numbers at the faces of Black women. Search the internet, and you'll find numbers ranging as high as 70% of Black women as unmarried - depending on the year the census was taken. You'll find alarming rates of disease, unease, and malpractice. Yet, despite the numbers plaguing our psyche, our reproductive health is seldom talked about. Our reproductive wellness, fears of infertility, and anxieties about weighing our scholastic feats with the pressure of "settling down" are often relegated to "think pieces." But our thoughts are crucial, our womanhood and the preservation of its vulnerability - and yes, strength is of high importance.

So I challenged myself, to be honest about my personal anxieties as I reach my mid-30's. Triumphant Black women have surrounded me, but conversations centering on fertility were at best reduced to being a "White woman's problem" under the assumption that our people, our women, could procreate at the drop of a dime. What happens when the reality that this might not be the truth is faced? How does the impact of deferred dreams, delayed love, and desires for Motherhood challenge us?

Don't Be Desperate is a quirky but honest exploration into the colorful imagination of ALIYAH STANBECK, a woman in her mid-late 30's who is a hopeless romantic with her head in the clouds but grounded by the fears of her "ticking clock."

NOW STREAMING ON ASPIRE TV!