Throughout her career as an award-winning filmmaker, Robin Hauser has often reflected on issues affecting women in today’s world. I

n 2021’s “$avvy,” she looked at the historical, cultural and societal norms around women and money, and in 2015’s “Code,” she explored the lack of women and minorities in the field of software engineering.

In her latest film, “Thaw,” Hauser, who splits her time between Tiburon and Utah, unpacks the social, economic and emotional complexities of egg freezing in a world where fertility is increasingly commodified. In it, she highlights medical experts, ethicists, industry leaders and firsthand accounts of women who go through the process for various reasons.

Hauser, mother of two adult children, took the time to speak about her latest film.

Q When did you become interested in this topic?

A I have a close friend who shared her fertility journey with me. It was so emotional. She’s in the film. She said, ‘Robin, there are so many women having fertility issues, but nobody really talks about it.’ I had such empathy for the journey and for what people are going through. As a documentarian, I became so curious about these shifts and changes in culture, especially in the women’s movement. More women are graduating from college than men. Women are pursuing careers. There are so many more women in the workforce than there were when my mother was having children. Those are all, I think, really good things. But, at the same time, I’ve seen that the birth rate in the United States is dropping and that it’s harder and harder for women to have children if they’re in their late 30s. I was moved by how complicated the situation is. I wanted to look deeper into egg freezing and how it has become commercialized.

I think a lot of women wonder, what’s wrong with me? Am I a failure because I’m not getting pregnant early? Am I doing something wrong because I would prefer to pursue my career right now rather than have children?

Is it wrong as a woman in her fertile years to not be ready to have children? Is it wrong to look at options to increase fertility? I think a lot of women struggle with these questions. I think that society looks at women of childbearing years and there’s this assumption that she will have children. Women should have children if they want to and when they want to. It’s a fascinating subject; I think that there’s going to be more and more conversations about this.

My concern is when women think that egg freezing is a guarantee. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last three years of making this film, it’s that it’s not a guarantee. It certainly increases your chances of being able to have a live birth with younger eggs later in life, but by no means is this a guarantee.

Q How did you approach finding subjects for the film?

A When you’re talking about such a sensitive subject, there aren’t that many women that are willing to bear it all in a documentary that someday will be widely distributed. I’m grateful to all the protagonists that shared their stories with us.

What we decided to do was look at the nonmedical reasons that women are freezing their eggs and really made sure that we told a variety of them. One protagonist was just enjoying life, and age crept up on her, and she thought she’d be fine. I think she represents a lot of women.

We also wanted to show how so many women are “fertility tourism” because it’s really not an affordable procedure. She represents that as well. Her story was really rich to us because it covered different angles of the issue. And we found it really interesting that there are a lot of women who are freezing and sharing eggs, one way to make this more accessible and more affordable. That’s becoming increasingly popular. And one of our subjects did that. She and her partner want to be parents, they believe, but they’re afraid of not being able to afford to raise children the way that they were raised. It’s a hard decision when the right timing is. I think there are a lot of couples out there that are struggling with when’s the right time to start a family because it’s so expensive.

The final subject’s decisions are career-driven. She’s a sponsored extreme athlete. She realizes that she’s going to have to take time away from her career in order to get pregnant and then nurse a child. You see her struggle, but then you see later in the story how she’s actually disappointed when she thinks that the quality of her embryos isn’t very good. Suddenly, she cares deeply about those embryos that represent her future ability to be a biological mother.

They’re so real, vulnerable and thoughtful about the process. And it was important we represent truthfully what they went through in the process.

Q What inspired the title?

A We were still in the development phase. At one point, within our discussions, it became more apparent that it isn’t just about the freeze. The most important thing is about the thaw. Does the egg or the embryo survive the thaw? Very subtly, what we hope our audience understands by the end of the film is that it’s not just about the egg freezing; it’s also very much about the thaw and about what happens after you freeze.

Q What inspires you?

A When I started about 12 years ago making films, the first one I fell into was “Running for Jim,” and it was about a high school cross-country coach who had Lou Gehrig’s disease and a female team that rallied around him and really pulled through to make him the winningest high school coach in California history. But I’ve always felt compelled to help promote women. I was raised by two parents who taught me to give back. I felt compelled to do something with my life to give back.

I hope that in some small way my work helps to inspire. I’ve always said, even if just one person in the audience is inspired by the films that I and my producers have made, then our job is done. All the effort that it takes to make a film, and it takes a lot, is worthwhile.

After I premiered the film “Code,” I got an email from a young woman who needed a career change, and she told me that she had gone to coding school, had gotten hired and was making three times what she was making before. That just makes me feel good. I’ve gotten emails from people that watched my film “$avvy” and have turned their financial lives around.

I’ve taken films to the White House, and I’ve screened them on Capitol Hill. I’ve gone all over the world with the American Film Showcase with different films. It’s all incredibly rewarding.

More information and future screenings at finishlinefeaturefilms.com.