Extended Family

Mummy, mama and daddy; mummy, mama and sperm donor. The film “Extended Family” offers an intimate insight into two same-sex families’ lives, who found a way to create their families within a legal grey zone in Switzerland. Swiss law bans access to adoption and any assisted reproductive medicine for same-sex couples, therefore the portrayed families do not exist officially. Nevertheless, according to estimations, there are between 6.000 and 30.000 children living in rainbow families across the country. By including all the different involved family members, the film shows how connections and disconnections between them are being shaped and what kind of difficulties might arise if suddenly both partners have the ability to conceive a child.

Ramona Sonderegger

Ramona Sonderegger was born in Altstätten, Switzerland. She earned her Primary Teacher degree in 2004 and conducted field research in Kyrgyzstan, which was realized as an ethnographic film. In 2013, she earned a BA in Social Anthropology, Political Sciences and Psychology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland and conducted more field research, this time in Yaoundé, Cameroon together with a local NGO about the situation of women widows and their children. In she received her MA in Visual Anthropology with Ethnographic Documentary Film, Granada Centre, University of Manchester.