Madame Hofmann

"Welcome to my life", Sylvie Hofmann repeats this sentence almost all day long. Sylvie has been a nurse for 40 years at the North Hospital of Marseille. Her life is running. Between patients, her sick mother, her husband and her daughter, she has always devoted her life to helping others. What if she decided to think a little about herself? To retire? Does she have the right, but above all, does she really want to?

Our Body

In a Parisian public hospital, Claire Simon questions what it means to live in women’s bodies, filming their diversity, singularity and their beauty in all stages throughout life. Unique stories of desires, fears and struggles unfold, including the one of the filmmaker herself.

The First Wave

When Covid-19 hit New York City in 2020, filmmaker Matthew Heineman gained unique access to one of New York’s hardest-hit hospital systems. The resulting film focuses on the doctors, nurses, and patients on the frontlines during the “first wave” from March to June 2020. Their distinct storylines each serve as a microcosm to understand how the city persevered through the worst pandemic in a century

Albert Schweitzer

This biographical docudrama traces the life of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, from his birth in Alsace, up to the age of 30 when he made the decision to go to French Equatorial Africa and build his jungle hospital. The latter half of the film encompasses a full day in the hospital-village, following the octogenarian Samaritan in his daily rounds.

The Waiting Room

In 2017 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I decided to film my time in waiting rooms, surgery and chemotherapy. Shot exclusively on the iPhone X, The Waiting Room is an unflinching portrait of the blood, sweat and tears of cancer treatment. At home I filmed with my teenage son, as we came to terms with how family life was transformed by a year of living with cancer. The Waiting Room challenges the cultural myths that surround this disease, putting under the microscope the language of illness. The Waiting Room documents illness from a patient’s POV, exploring what we can and what we can’t control when our bodies fail us. The Waiting Room 30 minute smartphone short was broadcast on The Guardian website as part of their documentaries strand.

HU

A symmetrically divided building: on one side, an important public hospital, on the other, a bewildering ruin. On the horizon, Rio de Janeiro, public health, education and Brazil’s aged modern project. Shot entirely in the monumental and only partially occupied modernist edifice of the University Hospital of UFRJ. A material metaphor of the Brazilian public sphere and its political maze. A synthesis architecturally expressed of the modernist utopia/dystopia.

On Call

At the consulting service for immigrants at the Avicenne Hospital in suburban Paris, we observe the sorrow and powerlessness of the immigrants who come here.

On the Edge

Things are busy at the Paris hospital where young psychiatrist Jamal and his colleagues work. The place is run down, the staff are exhausted, budgets are constantly being slashed. You know the story, but you’ve rarely seen it conveyed as engagingly as in ‘On the Edge’, which employs a handheld camera and meaningful, artistic interventions to observe the daily routine at the psychiatric ward. The deeply sympathetic Jamal is an everyday hero with an exemplary, humanistic disposition, for whom the most important prerequisites for mental health – and for a healthy society in general – are good relationships with other people. He puts his philosophy into practice by listening patiently, giving good advice and organising theatre exercises based on Molière. Realism and idealism, however, are in balance for the young doctor, at least as long as the institutional framework holds up.

Coma

Four young Americans who've each suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury emerge from their comas at a New Jersey medical facility. Their eyes may be open, but now the real challenge for each of the patients, their families, their doctors and their therapists begins. Brain healing isn't predictable, we're told, and certainly is not guaranteed. So with each 'major' step forward that is observed (opening one's eyes, bending a thumb upon command, vocalizing a word, answering a question correctly) comes a sense of jubilant relief and hope from the families of these patients, but as we soon see, the more a patient progresses, the more difficult things can be for all involved. Moments of faith & hope contrast with disappointments & frustrations, moments of confidence with moments of doubt. It's difficult to watch, and unimaginable to have to ever live through.

Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom

Kazuo Nishii, renowned editor and photography critic, died in 2001 of stomach cancer. Two months earlier he contacted Naomi Kawase, whose works he admired, to document the remaining weeks of his life. Kawase visits him in the hospital and films the progression of his sickness and the conversations between the two.

The Linen

A subdued observation of daily life in a children's hospital. The driver of a delivery van regularly delivers clean linen to the wards where small, tense dramas of life and death are played out.

Risen: The Story of Chron "Hell Razah" Smith

Discovered by Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, Hell Razah had a promising career and gold records before he was tragically struck down with a brain aneurysm. Risen traces his journey to recovery - both spiritually and physically - back to the mic.

Phases of Matter

Phases of Matter follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.

Novanta Giorni

“Novanta Giorni” to make a life-changing choice. Two opposing worlds brought into dialogue in this documentary by Women from all walks of life turn to the “Cervello” Hospital in Palermo, Sicily, to terminate their pregnancies while the pro-life center ostracizes this practice and those who instead understand and help in this journey...

Der lange Weg ans Licht

Click to Ransom

A small rural hospital in Japan battles an international cybercriminal gang that is holding them ransom with their stolen patient data.