To afford the financial impossibility of parenthood, Ava and her partner Ella use a corporate wellness benefit at SomaGen to fully fund their embryo freezing. Three years later, they have a son, Leo.
But when Ava resigns for a higher-paying role elsewhere, her victory is shattered by a legal notice: because his creation was company-funded, Leo is a Conditional Corporate Asset of SomaGen. The fine print reveals that Ava's continuous employment was the lease fee for her son's custody — by quitting, she has triggered a material breach of contract.
Ava surrenders her ambitions to save her family. Finding her old position filled, she is forced into a dehumanizing role in Human Resources — the very seat she once sat across from.
The film ends where it began: a benefits packet slides across a desk to a hopeful new hire. Whether Ava can bring herself to warn them is a question the film refuses to answer.
| § | Section | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| C | Cast | $1,500 |
| D | Salaries — Full Unit | $5,000 |
| F | Art Department — Props & Prod Design | $1,000 |
| G | Costumes | $1,000 |
| H | Hair & Make Up | $500 |
| K | Location — Rental & Costs | $2,000 |
| L | Travel & Accommodation | $1,000 |
| M | Catering | $500 |
| N | Post-Production | $1,000 |
| O | Insurance | $800 |
| X | Extra Charges | $1,000 |
| Total Budget | $15,300 |
"What happens if she leaves?"
Terms & Conditions was born from a chillingly mundane conversation between two guys in their thirties talking about the looming idea of parenthood. When a friend mentioned his wife's work covered the cost of embryo freezing, my immediate, horrifying thought was that question. He laughed it off. I couldn't.
The idea that a child could be held as collateral by an employer — that sparked the narrative of Ava and Ella.
As a child of divorce, I was drawn to the idea of a child sitting at the center of a conflict while never having a voice in it. We watch two entities — one warm and loving, the other cold and corporate — claim ownership over a life neither of them fully understands.
Sacrificing a career for your child is supposed to be a no-brainer. But for Ava, it's a bittersweet surrender — saving her son means becoming a permanent cog in the very machine she tried to escape.
This film highlights a dystopian present, examining the terrifying trade-off made every time we click "Accept All," often without understanding the weight of that agreement.
Josh McCausland is a filmmaker, composer, and executive producer based in New York City. He founded iQ Flicks in 2014 after studying fine arts and filmmaking at Cumberland University in Nashville, where he played collegiate soccer on scholarship and discovered that storytelling was the thread connecting every creative pursuit he had.
After gaining early experience at Sony Tree Studios on Music Row, Josh built a career spanning narrative film, music production, and brand filmmaking. His short films have screened at festivals nationwide, with Anamnesis earning multiple awards and nominations. He develops original narrative work through 9ine Films, the production company he runs with producer and collaborator Glen Kwon.
His work managing photo and video brand at Relativity has given him a front-row seat to corporate culture — the aesthetics of it, the language of it, the way institutions present themselves to the people inside them. That world quietly shaped the visual and tonal language of Terms & Conditions.
This film is his most personal project to date — rooted in a real conversation, a genuine fear, and a long-standing fascination with the quiet agreements we make without fully understanding what we're signing away.