Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos' film follows the development of Partners in Health.
Thirty years ago, as much of the world was being ravaged by horrific diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, three remarkable young people, barely out of their teens—Jim Yong Kim, Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl—came together in a squatter settlement in Haiti.
Determined to provide the same world-class level of medical care they would expect for their own families to the Haitians that soon became their friends, they faced obstacles so enormous they weren't even considered surmountable by the rest of the world.
Through remarkably candid interviews and stunning never-before-seen archival and on-the-ground footage shot in the midst of a deadly epidemic, the audience is immersed in the struggle of these fiercely dedicated characters as they fight ancient diseases, scrape together funding with the lives of their friends on the line, face scorn and hostility from the global health establishment, and suffer heartbreaking mistakes from their own lack of experience.
Reaching far beyond the issue of health care, Bending the Arc shows how moral imagination, strategy, and sheer will together can change the trajectory of the world, bending the arc of the moral universe closer to justice.
See Bending the Arc film site here.
The screening will be introduced by GMU Global & Community Health graduate Maggie Brutes and Dr. Michael E. Von Fricken, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in GMU's Department of Global and Community Health. A post-screening discussion will be led by Dr. Carole Smarth of the Loudon Medical Group.
Our event is sponsored by the Department of Global and Community Health, Film and Media Studies, and Film and Video Studies.
