INCUBA Project #2 | Red Collision

ONE LINER:

A woman agrees to become a surrogate for an agency, unaware that they plan to traffic her organs after giving birth.

ONE LINER:

Jhoana, a Venezuelan immigrant, agrees to become a surrogate mother to secure a decent life for her young son. Along with her, other women arrive at “Maternity Incuba Care,” the agency that will make their dreams come true. But as the pregnancy progresses, Jhoana discovers that after the birth, her body will be used to supply the organ trafficking business. The young woman will seek a way to escape from this place alive, but not before ensuring the safety of her own family.

SYNOPSIS

Jhoana Villa (27) is one of many migrants trying to earn a livelihood and support her young son Matías (5) and her mother Rosalba (50) far from their home country. However, the place where she works shuts down, and opportunities for a single mother are scarce. Then, Carmen (32), a friend from her previous job, suggests she become a surrogate. Although hesitant, Jhoana decides to accompany Carmen to “Maternity Incuba Care,” a surrogacy agency that promises very favorable conditions. The contract stipulates that during the gestation period, she must live in a house with nineteen other women undergoing the process. Jhoana is reluctant to be separated from Matías, but the agency allows the women to bring their children if needed, which persuades her to make the decision.

Alongside Carmen and the other women, Jhoana arrives at a luxurious mansion that offers all comforts and begins her surrogacy process, carrying the child of Irene Navarro (60), a Spanish lawyer and VIP client of the agency. The first few weeks pass peacefully, but over time, this idyllic place of luxury and comfort starts to resemble more of a prison, due to the meticulous control of Minerva (55), the manager in charge. Minerva rigorously oversees diets, schedules, and exercises. Faced with the strict confinement, several surrogates express a desire to leave. While some are allowed to depart, others are compelled to stay because their children are in the agency’s care.

As the pregnancy progresses, Jhoana notices that several women disappear without a trace after experiencing miscarriages. Others are treated by a peculiar psychoanalyst, Dr. Beltrán (60), who instead of helping them with therapy, induces severe anxiety and depression. Additionally, her son starts behaving strangely: becoming aggressive, drawing macabre things, and claiming to see ghosts. All of this raises Jhoana’s suspicions. Alongside Carmen, she begins to investigate and discovers numerous cases of healthy and strong women who have died during different stages of gestation. This is all part of “Project Incuba,” an agency program that categorizes surrogates based on their physical characteristics so that, in addition to being surrogates, they also serve as organ banks. The two friends realize that after giving birth, they are destined to die, and their bodies will be mutilated to supply the black market. Before they can take action, they are discovered by Minerva, who assures them there is no escape. In a desperate act, Carmen stabs her own belly, killing the embryo inside.

After several days of confinement, Jhoana reaches an agreement with Minerva: she will continue the gestation process of Irene’s child, the agency’s VIP client, and she won’t reveal anything that happens in that place to the other surrogates, in exchange for the release of her son. The nurse agrees, and Matías is taken to Rosalba’s care. Meanwhile, Jhoana tries to find a way to contact her mother to warn her about the danger they are in, but she cannot evade the security imposed by Minerva. On the other hand, Rosalba becomes uneasy about Jhoana’s absence and starts investigating the agency, which leads her to the doors of the mysterious mansion. She refuses to leave until she finds out what happened to her daughter.

SYNOPSIS PER EPISODE

EPISODE 1: ZYGOTE

JHOANA (27) decides to rent out her womb through “Maternity Incuba Care,” a promising surrogacy agency. She moves with her son MATÍAS (5) and her friend CARMEN (32) to a mansion where they will live during the gestation alongside other women. There, she is chosen by IRENE (60) as a surrogate mother and begins her process. Everything seems like a fairy tale until, following the embryo implantation, some women start to disappear.

EPISODE 2: MORULA

MINERVA (55), the manager in charge, controls the routines of the surrogate mothers, their diets, and their schedules, making the place feel like a prison. Some women express their desire to leave and are allowed to go, while others who also wish to leave are manipulated into staying for the sake of their children’s well-being. Jhoana tries to contact her mother ROSALBA (50), but she hasn’t forgiven her for taking her grandson. Despite this, Jhoana feels more at ease having her son with her. The women who had previously decided to leave were actually murdered in a secret room of this place, and their bodies are mutilated.

EPISODE 3: BLASTULA

Jhoana begins to feel the confinement, but manages it by talking with Carmen and LUCÍA (22), a young first-time mother who suffers the loss of the embryo and ends up being transferred to the forbidden wing of the house. In the following weeks, two more women are also isolated. The atmosphere becomes more hostile with the arrival of BELTRÁN (60), a strange psychoanalyst who starts treating the surrogate mothers. Instead of improving their spirits, they worsen. Matías begins to draw strange things and talk about ghosts, which worries Jhoana. Suddenly, after four weeks of pregnancy, Jhoana suffers a spontaneous miscarriage.

EPISODE 4: Gastrula

Después del aborto repentino, Irene exige a la agencia After the sudden miscarriage, Irene demands that the agency repeat the procedure. Matías has become an aggressive child, as have other children living there, which alerts Jhoana even more. Together with Carmen, she begins to investigate what is happening in that place, as several women have also disappeared. When they discover a room filled with human organs, along with death certificates, records of live births, and falsified donation authorizations, they are intercepted by Minerva. The women confront the nurse, who assures them there is no escape. Overwhelmed by their situation, Carmen, in a panic attack, repeatedly stabs her own belly, killing the embryo inside.

EPISODE 5: Embryo

EPISODE 6: Fetus

After several days of confinement, Jhoana reaches an agreement with Minerva, she will continue the gestation process of Irene’s child and won’t reveal anything about what happens in that place, in exchange for the release of her son. She agrees, and Matías is taken to Rosalba’s care. Meanwhile, Jhoana tries to find a way to contact her mother and warn her to disappear with her son, but she cannot evade the security imposed by Minerva. On her part, Rosalba becomes worried about Jhoana’s absence and starts investigating the agency, which leads her to the doors of the mysterious mansion. She refuses to leave until she finds out what happened to her daughter.

CHARACTER’S
PROFILE

JHOANA (27)

Key Characteristics: She is hardworking, courageous, and always sees beyond the surface. At times, she may appear cold, but she is actually empathetic and cares deeply for others; she’s a natural leader.

Character Development: Motherhood was never part of her plans, but her son Matías is the greatest joy in her life, the sole reason she perseveres. This motivates her to become a surrogate mother, not only as a unique economic opportunity to provide a better future for her son but also to help someone else experience the same joy she has found in motherhood. However, her cautious nature keeps her vigilant, leading her to quickly uncover that something strange is happening within this agency.

CHARACTER’S
PROFILE

ROSALBA (50)

Key Characteristics: A strong-willed woman, she has always had a composed demeanor and finds it hard to express her emotions, but she is very affectionate towards her grandson, whom she spoils endlessly.

Character Development: Rosalba has always taken care of her family and been a huge support to her daughter in raising Matías. That’s why when Jhoana decides to involve herself in the strange business of renting her womb and taking her grandson away, Rosalba can’t understand her, feeling betrayed. Despite the distance this creates, Rosalba remains vigilant, believing that in something as twisted as buying a baby, there must be darker intentions at play.

CHARACTER’S
PROFILE

IRENE (60)

Key Characteristics: She is a woman of overwhelming confidence. Imposing, strong, and perceptive, she is accustomed to getting her way and is never willing to lose.

Character Development: Nationally recognized as one of Spain’s most influential women, Irene Navarro has forged a prestigious career that has brought her fame and fortune. However, the loss of her son has left a deep wound that she is determined to heal at any cost. This leads her to develop an obsession with bringing him back to life, using his sperm to impregnate herself again in the hope that the new baby will resemble her deceased son. Despite no place wanting to get involved in something so twisted, her influence and economic power lead her to Maternity Incuba Care, the agency willing to fulfill her disturbing whim.

CHARACTER’S
PROFILE

MINERVA (55)

Key Characteristics: She is apparently sweet, with a maternalistic attitude that conceals an uncontrollable evil. Minerva is ambitious and ruthless.

Character Development: As the head nurse at the public hospital, she witnessed firsthand the cruelty of many women towards their newborn babies, which hardened her character significantly. She is controlling, obsessed with order and cleanliness, and nothing escapes her attention. Escaping her regime is nearly impossible.

SCREENWRITER’S STATEMENT

The right to reproduction is a human right and surrogacy has given couples and individuals the possibility to have biological offspring who otherwise would not be able to do so. However, when we talk about surrogacy we inevitably face an exercise of exploitation of the female body, as many of the women who decide to become surrogate mothers come from vulnerable backgrounds where their basic rights have not been guaranteed and see this as the only possibility to build a better future for themselves and their families.

From this idea and from my own experience of childbirth, ‘Incuba Project’ emerges, a series that explores from the genre of horror, the idea that women’s bodies have been exploited and violated in various ways for years. When behind something as delicate as pregnancy there is a business that takes advantage of the needs of vulnerable women, it opens the door to unthinkable threats that bring us closer to the horror of inequality.

MOODBOARD

The universe of ‘Incuba Project’ is developed through powerful ideas referring to human trafficking in a dystopian environment, this has been represented in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, where women are forced into sexual slavery for the purpose of procreation, both stories seek to tell the drama behind the exploitation of the female body and how the power elites take advantage of people in vulnerable conditions, recreating cold and austere atmospheres to reinforce these aspects through color.

MOODBOARD

At the same time, the concept of psychological and body horror used in films such as Midsommar and Get Out, are a very important reference for the development of ‘Incuba Project’ where the characters, as in the two aforementioned films, arrive at an apparently normal place, which turns sinister as other characters and situations affect them psychologically.

MOODREEL

WELCOME TO

SYNOPSIS

‘Incuba Project’ is a series that explores the complex universe of surrogacy, approaching aesthetic and narrative conventions from the horror genre, it tells the story of a woman who, attracted by the economic promises of an apparently legal agency, ends up falling into a deadly trap.

Like a cow that is used for its milk and meat, the women in this story end up in a situation similar to that of this animal, as their bodies are exploited not only for the gestation of new human beings, but also for the prolongation of other people’s lives at the cost of their own existence.

Under this idea, “Maternity Incuba Care”, an agency that operates in a clandestine manner and takes cover behind a curtain of legality that takes advantage of the legal loopholes in the face of the non-existent laws regarding surrogacy, all this with the aim of capturing the attention of women who represent a clear sector of vulnerability in society: Single mothers, immigrants and people in conditions of poverty who would easily accept to be surrogate wombs for economic retribution, and at the same time, they personify a sector to which little attention is paid, which is why they end up being the perfect victims for this place and its macabre crimes.

Another aspect that defines ‘Incuba Project’ within the genre is the impossibility of a positive resolution for the characters, the elites that operate behind the agency, the investigations hindered by the powerful and the subsequent cover-up by the media, reveal a terrifying truth that not only sticks in this story but in our own reality, despite all the attempts of the protagonists, in the end the strongest, most powerful and richest, always win.

SCREENWRITER’S BIOGRAPHY

Camila Caballero

Screenwriter and director with 10 years of experience in the production of audiovisual content. She is currently a member of the Red Script Factory, a scriptwriters’ laboratory focused on strengthening projects in development of feature films and series for sale.

MÁS ALLÁ DE LA LLUVIA (WEB SERIES), ZORRO Y SERPIENTE FILMS, 2023 Screenwriter
Winner of the call Abre cámara 2021

ENCUARENTUSADO (WEB SERIES), 8K FILMS, 2021
Screenwriter and Director
Winner of the call Grandes Historias 2021
MinTic and Smartfilms

ADULTO MAYOR (SHORTFILM), ZORRO Y SERPIENTE FILMS, 2020 – Screenwriter and Director
Winner of the call Grandes historias con pequeñas cámaras 2020
MinTic and Smartfilms

ALMA (SHORTFILM), LA PATOTA FILMS, 2014
Screenwriter and Director
Winner of the call Bogoshorts en obra 2013

COMPANY’S BIOGRAPHY

Red Collision, founded in 2017 is an audiovisual production company with over six years of experience redefining the entertainment landscape with original films and captivating genre series, also offers top-notch production services and has a slateof projects in development for sale.

The Red Collision team has worked on productions for StudioCanal, Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, Discovery, CBS, Max, among others.

In 2020 they produced their first feature film called A CERTAIN ALONSO QUIJANO, directed by LIBIA STELLA GÓMEZ with the support of Dago García Producciones and Caracol Televisión; it premiered in 2021 with a digital strategy, reaching more than 500 thousand viewers.

The feature film THE TRAIL is a crime thriller that won the FDC in the post-production category and will be released in 2024. Four other projects are underway, two in post-production: I CALL THEM “SOULS” and ENEMY IN THE MIRROR. Two are scheduled to be shot in 2024, and all will be released between 2025 and 2026.

In early 2024, Red Collision created “Red Script Factory”, a dynamic writers’ room, a space of constant idea creation where captivating stories and epic scripts are born to revolutionise the world of original content and redefine storytelling.

AUDIENCE

“Incuba Project” is a series that explores, from the horror genre, the idea that women’s bodies have been exploited and violated in various ways for years. Starting with the surrogacy business, we enter a dark universe in which vulnerable women are in danger when they fall into the hands of an agency that hides a macabre business from which they must flee at all costs when behind something as delicate as pregnancy there is a business that takes advantage of the need of vulnerable women; the door opens to unthinkable threats that bring us closer to stories like those of Jhoana.

This series should be told because it seeks to make visible the power of gender. This universal story affects thousands of women and increases the inequality gaps that we as a society are seeking to reduce. We believe this series can attract people between 18 and 50 years old who are interested in genres such as horror and suspense and are attracted by universal themes such as women, gestation, surrogacy, and organ surrogacy.

Finally, the story can work very well in Latin American, European and North American territories, as it appeals directly to the genre and promises, through explicit language and a plot of gripping situations, to keep viewers on the edge of their seats from beginning to end.