DOCUMENTARIES WITH A POINT OF VIEW
healthcare
Roger Weisberg's Critical Condition, which airs this fall on P.O.V., answers the question with the stories of four individuals who struggle with health problems without insurance: together with their loved ones, they are forced to confront difficult financial and emotional decisions as they fight for their lives. It's a problem that faces a sixth of the nation every day, as the ranks of the uninsured swell toward 50 million.
Watch
Critical Condition on PBS, September 30 at 10 p.m.; or view the
trailer online.
I'll be facilitating a sneak-preview screening and discussion at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, NY (about two hours north of New York City), Saturday, June 21, at 1:30 PM. If you're interested in attending, please do — the screening and discussion are free!
What's your position on health care policy? Come talk about it this weekend at Upstate Films, or post a comment below!
On October 7, 2008, P.O.V. will air Joanna Rudnick's In the Family. When Joanna tested positive for the "breast cancer gene" at age 27, she knew the information could save her life. She also knew that she would have to make heart-wrenching decisions about whether or not to remove her breasts and ovaries, or risk developing cancer. In the Family is a moving document of one young woman's struggles, and her efforts to reach out to other women while facing her deepest fears.
On May 1st, Congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) bill. On this momentous occasion, Joanna writes in to talk about why the GINA bill is so important, and to introduce us to In the Familiy.
Watch the trailer for the film:
In 2001, at the age of 27, I decided to take a genetic test to find out my odds of getting breast and ovarian cancer. As I pondered what a positive test result would mean to my future, one of my main concerns was the potential for losing my health insurance because of a pre-existing condition.
Even though a positive test result is only a predictor of risk and not a diagnosis of disease, I wasn't confident that the insurance companies would see it the same way. So I tested anonymously, paying out of pocket for the blood test.
It came back "positive for a deleterious mutation," and I worked hard to keep the information out of my medical records, often leading to confused and uninformed conversations with doctors about my future care. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't be living in fear solely because I inherited some bad DNA.
During the process of making In the Family, I hooked up with an incredible group called The Coalition for Genetic Fairness that was working tirelessly to try and pass legislation to protect individuals from genetic discrimination by insurers and employers. This legislation, The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), would offer more than just legal protections; it would conquer the culture of fear that had grown around genetic testing.
After a nearly 13-year battle to pass GINA in some form of another, the bill passed both houses of Congress a few weeks ago and President Bush has promised to sign it into law.
I cried as I watched two hours of the Senate hearings on C-SPAN, during which Senator Ted Kennedy referred to the bill as the most important civil rights legislation passed in the new century. I could see the hundreds of faces of all the women and their families I encountered on the road the last few years and know that they no longer had to live in fear that their genetic information would be used against them.
Instead, we can now focus our energies on early detection and prevention, and living full lives despite our predispositions.
In the Family airs on P.O.V. on Wednesday, October 1. You can sign up to be reminded of the film's broadcast on its preview page.
Earlier this month, I attended the Film Your Issue launch party at the United Nations. I first heard about Film Your Issue (FYI) from our partners at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. For the past five years we've worked with their American Democracy Project, to support them in accomplishing the goal of educating undergraduates in public higher education on global issues. Why? So students are ready to wisely practice their civic responsibilities as thoughtful and engaged citizens.
The concept behind FYI is beautifully clear and direct. They ask 14-24 year olds to "film their issue" because they want young people to contribute to the public discussion on pressing issues — and even influence policy. We are in fantastic company on this project — the United Nations, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the NAACP, USA TODAY, Associated Press, MTV, the Humane Society of the United States, the NRDC, Starz, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Association of Student Councils, AFI Silverdocs and AFI Screen Nation, International Documentary Association, MySpace, the American Association of University Professors, the University Film and Video Association and the Association of American Colleges and Universities are some of the other sponsors. Plus, we are offering this year a summer internship at P.O.V. as one of the special prizes. For our prize, the winning film will be selected for illuminating issues relevant in the 2008 Presidential election, including education, election reform, environment, foreign policy and the war, healthcare and immigration.The winning film will be posted on the P.O.V. site and broadcast in full or excerpted on Starz.
Find out how to submit your video.
With Critical Condition, Roger Weisberg takes an unflinching look at what it's like to be sick and uninsured in America. He took a few minutes to answer some questions about his film and why health care and universal health insurance should be a critical issue during this election year. Critical Condition will have its broadcast premiere on P.O.V. in 2008.
P.O.V.: Tell us about your new film, Critical Condition.
Weisberg: I've made eight previous health care programs for PBS, but they were public affairs-style documentaries with narrators, lots of information, issue analysis, politicians, and other experts. For Critical Condition, I chose a cinema vérité style because I wanted viewers to vicariously experience the medical, financial, and emotional impact of being unable to obtain necessary health care. Instead of interviewing experts or policy makers who would tell viewers what to think, I wanted these disturbing stories to unfold through the experiences and words of our primary subjects. I believe that these narratives of uninsured patients in the midst of their own medical crises will engage viewers far more effectively than yet another recitation of grim facts and statistics.
I also chose to make Critical Condition now, because I wanted to help advance the cause of universal health insurance. I think we are on the brink of a rare historical opportunity to overhaul our troubled health care system, and my fondest hope is that Critical Condition can contribute to this effort at this opportune moment.
Still from Critical Condition: Ronnie Dove comforts his wife, Karen, who faces an uphill battle with cancer in Austin, Texas because of a delayed diagnosis due to her lack of insurance. Photo by Heather Courtney
P.O.V.: Health care is one of the hot-button issues being debated in the 2008 Presidential Elections. Do you think the candidates are paying enough attention to the issue?
Weisberg: The public has consistently rated health care the most pressing domestic policy issue in the presidential election. Now that the economy is heading for a downturn, economic security also has risen to the top of the list, but as the stories in Critical Condition clearly illustrate, nobody is economically secure without health insurance. A job loss, pink slip, divorce, or a major illness can easily result in the loss of health insurance, and at that point, any illness can quickly become a financial calamity. The Democratic candidates have all spoken at length about health care, and they all have presented comprehensive plans to cover the uninsured. Although Senator Clinton's and Obama's plans differ in their detail — most dramatically over the necessity for an individual mandate — they have more in common than in conflict.
Watch the trailer and read more after the jump...
As the curtain rises on another entry into the blogosphere, let me quickly introduce myself: My name is Tom Roston, and I was a Senior Editor at Premiere magazine — where I covered movies 24/7 for ten years — until that publication folded this year. I have always been a passionate fan of documentaries, particularly theatrical docs, and had planned for years to write a feature celebrating the most influential documentaries of all time at Premiere. I missed my chance, so now I'm deeply grateful to the good people at P.O.V., who have thrown out a small patch of carpet on the Internet for me to expound on everything doc-related. I'll be writing a post every week here on the P.O.V. Blog, and I plan to write about whatever documentary issues are on my mind or are on the minds of P.O.V. Blog visitors like you. I'll be happy to field whatever you've got — whether it's gripes, groans or gratuitous gossip.
But enough about me — let's start with a bang. Or, rather, the whimper heard at the box office this year by documentaries. What the heck happened? Since 2003, each year has seen at least one monster box office winner (with over $10 million in receipts) alongside at least six other films that make more than a million dollars. But not this year. The big fish was once again served up by Michael Moore (Sicko has made more than $24 million), but the only other films in the million dollar club are the Iraq War doc No End in Sight and In the Shadow of the Moon, which chronicled NASA's Apollo Mission. (In the Shadow of the Moon can hardly be seen as a financial success considering that distributor ThinkFilm paid more than $2 million to acquire the rights to release it.)
The most common explanations I've heard from distributors and filmmakers are the following: It's cyclical (so, don't worry); There's a glut of product (so, it'll sort itself out); and all independent and/or serious fiction films are taking a hit, so docs might as well too (so, don't worry, it'll sort itself out). I've also heard rumblings that it's the distributors' fault, that they're overreaching in their marketing plans, going for too mainstream an audience. And that with so many docs released in the fall season in an attempt to capitalize on Oscar heat, the films were lost in a sea of serious fictional releases. On the other hand, I've heard counter rumblings that it's the filmmakers' faults, that the films themselves are just not up to the caliber of previous years.
Read more after the jump.
Our weekly doc roundup collects critical reactions to some current documentary releases in the theaters and on DVD.
IN THEATERS NOW
It's a sparse week for documentary releases in the theaters. The only major release is Rob VanAlkemade's What Would Jesus Buy, which follows the anti-consumerist Reverend Billy, a performance artist and mock evangelist who organizes the Church of Stop Shopping. The film, produced by Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame, receives generally positive reviews, with the Village Voice calling it "Slick, well-paced and tremendously entertaining," and the New York Times pronouncing it "...fast and funny." Some reviewers, however, complain that the issue-based doc "...doesn't have much to say." As an addendum to the story, Reverend Billy was arrested in June in New York City, accused of harassing police officers by reciting the First Amendment at a rally in Union Square Park. Yesterday, the Manhattan district attorney's office dropped the charges against him.
