AllMovie

JoEllen Marsh was seven years old when she learned the truth about her biological father -- her mother had gone to a sperm bank in order to have a child, and JoEllen's "dad" was known simply as "Donor 150," a tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes. As time passed, JoEllen wondered if Donor 150 fathered any other children through sperm donation, and through an on-line research database she got to know a handful of other young adults who shared the same DNA and a surprising number of both physical and emotional traits. JoEllen met even more of her half-siblings when a story about her search was published in the New York Times, and before long they developed a curiosity about meeting Donor 150 face to face. Filmmaker Jerry Rothwell documents JoEllen's search for her half-sisters and brothers and the father neither she or her mother ever knew in the documentary Donor Unknown, which also examines some of the curious aspects of the (largely unregulated) sperm back industry in California, as well as revealing the true identity of Donor 150, a former male exotic dancer and hippie massage therapist who donated sperm over 500 times in the 1980s. Donor Unknown received its world premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.