The Producers

Julia Kots  – Writer, Director

Julia Kots is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and a refugee from Ukraine. Her first narrative feature film, Inez & Doug & Kira, was awarded the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre Grant and was released in 2020. Julia has worked as an editor for the past 15 years, including 14 years for Thirteen/WNET/PBS. Julia’s award-winning short films have screened at dozens of festivals worldwide, including Slamdance, Cinequest, Woodstock, Hamptons, Edmonton, and Chicago International. She has received awards and grants such as IFP Audience Choice Award, Coca Cola Refreshing Filmmakers Grant, New Line Cinema Grant, Milos Forman Fund, ASCAP Scoring Grant, AMPAS Foundation Grant, as well as a residency from the MacDowell Colony. She holds an MFA from Columbia Film School and a BA from Yale.

David Makadi  – Animator

David Makadi is an animator from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who studied art in South Africa before being chosen to be the first international recipient of FIT’s Social Justice Scholarship, a full scholarship to pursue an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Illustration and Animation at FIT, New York. David has animated a series of short films for the Stanford School of Medicine, since he began collaborating with Stanford’s Global Child Health Media Initiative in 2020. One of these films, an animated children’s mental health film called My Hero is You, was developed in partnership with the WHO, UNICEF and the IASC, and reached more than 2.4 million families globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has also worked under the direction of Chaz Bottom, Artistic Director of CBA Studios and he has developed animated edutainment content for global health research initiatives at the Heidelberg University Institute of Global Health.

Ben Wolf – Director of Photography

Ben Wolf is a DP, director, and owner of Brooklyn-based film production company Topiary Productions, Inc. A graduate of Yale (BA Philosophy) and Columbia (MFA Film), he works world-wide in all genres, including documentary, commercial, and fiction film-making. Recent projects include serving as DP/co-producer of the documentaries KEEPER OF TIME (dir. Mike Culyba), OBIT (dir. Vanessa Gould) and THE HAPPY FILM (Stefan Sagmeister), shooting commercials for Citi, Wells Fargo and New York City, and directing promos for Knoll Furniture and The Museum of Modern Art.

Lambert – Composer

Lambert is a Berlin-based composer and pianist known for his signature Sardinian horned mask, which he wears during performances to maintain anonymity and direct focus to the music itself. Trained in jazz and rooted in the neo-classical movement, his work blends delicate piano melodies with subtle electronic textures and orchestral elements, evoking comparisons to contemporaries like Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds. Since releasing his self-titled debut in 2014, Lambert has built a distinctive catalog that includes albums such as Sweet Apocalypse, True, False, and most recently Actually Good (2024). He has also composed film scores and collaborated with artists across genres. Based in Berlin’s fertile creative scene, Lambert continues to craft intimate, emotionally resonant compositions that are both playful and profound.

Making The Film

'No Baby on Board was conceived in the uncertainty of the pandemic. Armed with little more than personal conviction and one trusted cinematographer, I set out to make this film on my own terms. I knew early on that this would be a mix of testimonials and animation. Animation offered something no verité or archival footage could: a way to render the interior world of women's decision-making with honesty and humor. Developed collaboratively over two years on a shoestring budget, the animation became the film's beating heart. What began as a deeply personal reckoning grew into something far greater — proof that the most important stories don't wait for perfect conditions or funding.

— Julia Kots, Director, No Baby on Board