BABY SISTER
Narrative Feature
Project Type: Narrative Feature
Project Status: Development
Director: Windy Raun
Writer: Windy Raun and Carrie Adams
Producer: Christina Radburn and Michael Dean Hebert
Lead: Carrie Adams
LOGLINE
Exhausted by fertility struggles and family pressure, Caroline turns to her gay younger sister Ryan for help. Would a surrogacy tear the sisters apart or could it give birth (sorry) to something new?
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Baby Sister is a portrait of Ryan Gordon and her family. It’s a story of a family persevering through immense growing pains and, quite literally, a labor of love. It’s about fertility, home, and grief, and it argues that the ideas we inherit about family aren’t fixed. We believe that the action of family is mostly hanging out, so we are interested in exploring these big themes through little moments like poker night conversations about whether the cheap beer Lone Star Light is any good or not.
Tonally, we’re inspired by Frances Ha, Juno, Insecure, and My Old Ass, which allow humor and big emotions to live side by side and all feature protagonists who stumble into discovering their own impact. We’ll add to that a certain Texanness: the pace and sensibility that’s almost baked into you when you hang out in the heat and humidity your whole life. This unhurriedness can be seen in Texan films like Dazed and Confused and Bottle Rocket.
SYNOPSIS
Baby Sister is an indie drama with a hangout comedy soul that takes place over three weekends, each about a year apart, at a Texas lake house.
Weekend 1: RYAN, her older sister CAROLINE, and Caroline’s husband JAY visit Ryan’s mother GEORGIA, a successful novelist recently diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Georgia puts a lot of baby pressure on her eldest daughter, unaware of Caroline’s infertility. The sisters discuss their similar situations: Ryan, as a lesbian, also can’t conceive naturally. Ryan asks Caroline if she’d ever consider using a surrogate; Caroline says no.
Later, Ryan is furious to discover a surrogacy contract in Caroline’s bag with “Ryan Gordon” as the surrogate. A sisterly spat turns into an honest conversation and a request from Caroline: that Ryan will be her egg donor and surrogate so Georgia can meet her grandchild before dying.
Ryan takes time to consider. She Googles egg donors, skinny dips and studies her body, considers consulting her partner Syd but chooses not to, and discusses pregnancy with Georgia. Ultimately, she decides she can’t handle the responsibility and tells Caroline no.
Weekend 2: During the time jump, Georgia passed away and Ryan changed her mind: she’s four months pregnant with Jay and Caroline’s baby. She’s nervous about bringing her nonbinary partner SYD to the lake house. To make matters worse the hospital calls with news that, despite her request for three, she’s only allowed two guests in the delivery room. She has to pick among Syd, Jay, and Caroline.
The purpose of the weekend is to spread Georgia’s ashes, but the delivery room question looms over everything. The family manages to keep it together until lunch, when Ryan and Caroline get into a blowout fight.
After each couple debriefs, Caroline and Ryan reunite (without fully reconciling) to sort through their mom’s stuff, while Jay and Syd bond over fixing the family jet ski. After the family spreads Georgia’s ashes, Ryan informs everyone that she’s chosen Caroline and Syd as her attendees. She leaves the room before she sees Caroline react.
Early the next morning, an emotional Ryan kayaks alone. Another pregnant kayaker appears, and the strangers sit together. When Ryan returns to the dock, Caroline is waiting, ready to haul the kayak out of the water.
Weekend 3: Another year-ish later, the family gathers again at the house for Ryan and Syd’s wedding. This time, baby George has joined the family. After the ceremony, Ryan and Caroline sneak off with George. The sisters agree that their mom knows everything worked out.
Meet the Filmmakers
-
Windy Raun (They/Them)
Director and Co-Writer
Windy Raun is a nonbinary director, writer, and editor originally from Houston, Texas. They are a graduate of Rice University, The USC School of Cinematic Arts, and the Google Creative Lab Five Program (other alums include Aneesh Chaganty and Sean Wang). As a freelance editor, Windy has worked on campaigns for Apple, Google, YouTube, ESPN, and Patreon, and they were an assistant editor on Renaissance: A Film By Beyonce. As a director, Windy’s shorts have played at Dances with Films (both NY and LA), Rhode Island Flickers Film Fest, Hollyshorts, The Hollywood Comedy Festival, The Houston Cinema Arts Festival, and the Lovers Film Fest.
-
Carrie Adams (She/Her)
Co-Writer, Lead
Carrie Adams is a queer actor, writer, and producer who grew up in Yarmouth, Maine and Tokyo, Japan. Her first writing project, High Noon, was co-written with Windy. In addition to US screenings, the short played at European and South American LGBTQ+ film festivals. Carrie graduated from Brown University with degrees in Theater Arts and Comparative Literature. She can be seen in the upcoming James L. Brooks film Ella McCay starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ayo Edebiri, and Woody Harrelsen.
-
Christina Radburn (She/Her)
Producer
Christina Radburn is an award-winning film producer and production executive based in Los Angeles, California, with 15+ years of experience within the screen industry. A storyteller with a strong commitment to creating content about the human condition that is honest and representative of the world we live in. Christina is a Fast Track Finance Market and Producing Lab, Film Independent Fellow. She is an alumna of the Screen Producers Australia Ones To Watch program. Her films have screened at notable film festivals, including Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Telluride, Melbourne International Film Festival, and Palm Springs, with distribution on Netflix, Hulu, National Geographic, and Paramount +.
-
Michael Dean Hebert (He/Him)
Producer
Michael Dean grew up in Northern Wisconsin. He went to school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied film and philosophy and helped run the student comedy paper. He first started production work in Madison, making commercials for MillerCoors, before moving to LA to pursue filmmaking. He is currently a Manager of Development Production at Netflix Animation. Prior to Netflix, he worked at Disney on Encanto, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He has produced two short films going to festivals in 2026.
Your Help
BABY SISTER is a fiscally sponsored project of Cinematography for Actors, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation will be tax-deductible!