Temi Ojo, Producer, Director, Writer 

Sloan Grant(s) Received: 2022, SFFILM, Science in Cinema Fellowship

Project Type: Feature 

Genre: Drama

Length: 122 pages 

Field of Science: Biology

Stage: Development 

Synopsis: 

Robert, an elderly black man, awakens from a coma after 6 months to find his body badly burned and his face severely disfigured from a fiery car crash. As he struggles to pull his life together, he is offered a rare opportunity for a face transplant surgery that could return basic functionality and grant him the ability to eat and drink normally again. This new medical procedure requires recovering the face of a recently deceased donor and transplanting it upon him, making it his own; a prospect that has him looking forward to the day he can kiss his daughter’s cheeks again. However, his daughter Ebony in her 20s, is not happy. Mindful of the US’s unfortunate medical history experimenting on black people and the surgeons’ admission that the experimental procedure is indeed life-risking, she questions why her father would be open to it. Even if the transplant succeeds, she believes the media attention would only make a circus freak show out of their lives. Still angry at Robert’s stubborn refusal to sue the drunk driver responsible to relieve their financial distress, Ebony must learn to reconcile her emotional trauma with this new person her father is evolving into.