Nine years ago, documentary filmmaker Mark Becker — a Needham native — and his directing partner, Aaron Schock, walked onto an estate that looked like it had been trapped in the comic book era. With laboratory beakers strewn about on the lawn, novelty toys stacked high on the shelves, and gates topped with iron “Sea-Monkeys,” the two knew they’d stumbled onto their next film. The property was the home of Yolanda Signorelli von Braunhut, the widow of Harold von Braunhut. Her husband had created an immensely successful business selling novelties (X-Ray Specs were popular), including packets of brine shrimp marketed as Sea-Monkeys.
Becker’s “Amazing Live Sea Monkeys” film follows the legal battle between Signorelli von Braunhut and the toy company she claims stole the Sea-Monkey business from her after her husband’s death.
Sea-Monkeys were popular novelty items in the 1960s and 1970s. Sold primarily through advertisements in comic books, the Sea-Monkey kits hold dormant brine shrimp eggs that can quickly hatch in saltwater. The Sea-Monkeys are then “instant pets” which only require simple care.
The story delves into the details of the ownership battle while also uncovering Harold’s nefarious past, secrets best left for viewers to discover in the film.
Becker knows it’s an interesting thing to stake your pride and fortune on the custody of a product that’s a package full of dormant brine shrimp. “Ultimately, this is a story of one person waging a battle that might seem unwise to all those around her,” Becker said. “It’s somebody that goes on an ethical path, towards doing what’s right beyond any sort of personal comfort, and that somehow plays into this crazy Sea-Monkey story in a way that you wouldn’t imagine. And that’s something that I want both to be eyewitnessed here, and that’s what I’m excited to share.”
The film’s themes — corporate greed versus small business and toxic masculinity — run underneath that fight, as Yolanda also grapples with ghosts from her marriage with Harold.
Becker and Schock’s film premiered in Austin, Texas, in March. Last month, at the DC/DOX Film Festival in Washington, D.C., Yolanda in the audience to view her life story on the screen.
“Showing the work is just really important and meaningful,” Becker said. “Putting the work out there, getting people to see it, respond to it, being able to show it in different cities and regions and feel connections to the audience, and then also, you know, when the subjects get to see the work and their own lives on the screen, it’s really important.”
From there, the film heads to Cape Cod. Becker’s next stop is the Woods Hole Film Festival July 25 — a homecoming, given his Massachusetts roots. He recalled how his childhood in Needham in the 1970s and ’80s sparked a love of film that would later drive him to make his own films.
“It is the primordial goo from which I feel like I came,” Becker said. “A bunch of friends and I used to watch old movies and, definitely, started in my Needham days, to get inspired by the idea of making films.”
Becker has spent 30 years living and breathing film, directing his own work and editing others’. One of his earlier films, “Art and Craft,” also screened at the Woods Hole Film Festival back in 2014.
Though Becker no longer lives in Needham, he still feels a strong connection to the town. In 2012, Needham High School — Becker was Class of 1987 — honored him with its 23rd annual George Dennett Distinguished Career Award, an honor that’s also gone to astronaut Sunita Williams, Coast Guard Admiral James Gracey, and Life is Good co-founders Bert and John Jacobs.
“Amazing Live Sea Monkeys”’ whimsical subject matter drew Woods Hole Film Festival Director Judy Laster to the documentary. “It’s just such an interesting story and quirky, and off the beaten track, and the filmmaker also has a relationship to this area, and he was an editor of a film that we showed last year,” Laster said. “So there was a lot going for the film, and the film just in and of itself is really good.”
Out of 1,000 submissions, only around 120 films made the cut for the 2026 Woods Hole Film Festival, and “Amazing Live Sea Monkeys” is one of them. Each film underwent a rigorous review process over the past year, with film critics grading on editing, acting (if relevant), visuals, sound, creativity and festival fit: a process Laster has fine-tuned over 35 years as one of the festival’s founders.
Becker hopes the film festival will be just the start of the film’s journey, as “Amazing Live Sea Monkeys” travels to other film festivals around the country.
“The hope is that the audience has their own personal experience with the film,” Becker said. “This film is about such quirky subject matter that I hope it is entertaining and engaging in ways that people wouldn’t expect.”
Readers can catch “Amazing Live Sea Monkeys” at the Woods Hole Film Festival July 25 at 7:45 p.m. at the Clapp Auditorium in the Lillie Building. Tickets are available online at https://woodshole.elevent.io/events/AmazingLiveSeaMonkeys.
Marlee Stone is a Government and Journalism student at Georgetown University
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