Babystar examines the darker side of family influencer culture
Joscha Bongard’s debut film follows 16-year-old Luca, whose social-media-star parents have turned family life into monetized content for 4 million followers. The German satire uses the discovery of filmed childhood moments, including Luca’s birth and a conversation about periods, to examine parental consent, privacy and the pressures of performing family life online.
Joscha Bongard’s debut film, Babystar, follows 16-year-old Luca, played by Maja Bons, as she grows up in a family whose private life is made public.
Luca’s parents, Stella and Chris, are social-media stars with 4 million followers. They produce viral videos presenting their family life as perfect from a minimalist home in the countryside.
When Luca wants to watch a film of her birth, she finds it on YouTube. A conversation her mother recorded about periods when Luca was nine or 10 was also made in the family’s podcast studio.
The film presents Stella and Chris as parents who love their daughter rather than as monsters, while showing how they perform much of their parenting in front of cameras. CCTV cameras installed throughout the home reinforce the film’s focus on surveillance and exposure.
The review describes Babystar as an impressively disturbing satire of the family influencer industry, although it says the film releases its dysfunctional tension too easily.
THE QUESTIONS THIS EVENT LEAVES BEHIND
What consent can children meaningfully give when recordings of their childhood are published before they can understand the consequences?
Who controls the money and ownership attached to a child’s private experiences when family content becomes a business?
What happens to family relationships when affection and parenting are repeatedly performed for an audience?
Would the ethical stakes change if Luca could remove the recordings or share in the earnings?
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GLOBAL CURIOSITY MAP · AUGUST 2026