The English Surgeon

(United Kingdom, 2008, 93 mins)

35mm

Midwest Premiere

director of photography: Graham Day
editor: Kathy O’Shea
executive producer: Greg Sanderson, Nick Fraser, Sally Jo Fifer
producer: Geoffrey Smith
co-producer: Rachel Wexler
production company: Eyeline Films, Bungalow Town

• IMDB Film Info
• www.theenglishsurgeon.com
• Trailer

Henry is one of London’s foremost brain surgeons, but despite being a pioneer in his field he stills rides an old pushbike to work and worries about the damage he can inflict on his patients. “When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on people’s thoughts and feelings...and if something goes wrong I can destroy that person’s character…forever.” Driven by the need to help others where he can, Henry has been going out to Kiev for over 15 years to help improve upon the brain surgery he witnessed there during his first visit in 1992. Today the patients see him as the great savior from the West, desperate parents want him to save their child, and his Ukrainian colleague Igor Kurilets sees him as a guru and a benefactor. But for all the direct satisfaction he gets from going, Henry also sees grossly misdiagnosed patients, children who he can’t save, and a lack of equipment and trained supporting staff. It is this dilemma however, a dilemma of his own making that is what’s so interesting about Henry, what lets his troubled and compassionate humanity through, and what is the universal theme at the centre of the film; the struggle to do good things in a selfish and flawed world. Winner, Best International Feature Documentary, 2008 HotDocs and SilverDocs festivals.

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