Bending the Arc

Last updated
Bending the Arc
BendingtheArc SFfilmfestival.jpg
Dr. Jim Kim, a Partners in Health patient, Pedro Kos, and Cori Shepherd Stern discuss the film at the SF Film Festival on April 14, 2017
Directed byKief Davidson, Pedro Kos
Written byCori Shepherd Stern
Produced byCori Shepherd Stern, Executive producers: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck
Starring Jim Yong Kim, Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Agnes Binagwaho
CinematographyDavid Murdock, Guy Mossman, Joshua Dreyfus
Edited byPedro Kos, Yuki Aizawa
Production
company
Impact Partners
Release date
  • January 23, 2017 (2017-01-23)(Sundance)
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Bending the Arc is a 2017 documentary film. It tells the story of Partners in Health and doctors and humanitarians, Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl, and Paul Farmer, who are devoted to innovative health care in impoverished nations. Directors Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos follow their ongoing struggle to treat and eradicate tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in rural areas of Haiti, Peru, and Rwanda. [1]

Contents

Synopsis

Paul Farmer and Jim Yong Kim met at Harvard Medical School in the 1980s and were both drawn to medicine by a shared desire for social justice. [2] Along with activist Ophelia Dahl, they decided to try and make quality healthcare available to those in poor countries. They raised funding and opened a clinic in rural Haiti, but realized they needed to incorporate more community work to realize their goals. Through dramatically increased cultural sensitivity, pointed listening skills, local partnerships, and home visits, treatment drastically improved, leading to Partners In Health. [1] [3] The film follows their story from their beginnings in Haiti, to treating multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru, and advocating for and implementing antiretroviral HIV therapy in Rwanda alongside Dr. Agnes Binagwaho.

Production

The directors of Bending the Arc, Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos, primarily use a traditional documentary format, mixing earlier video footage and current interviews to tell the story of how Jim Kim, Ophelia Dahl, and Paul Farmer developed Partners in Health. Where they deviate a bit is in showing older footage to their protagonists, in order to elicit their present-day reactions.

Release

The film has been screened at Sundance Film Festival, [1] Miami International Film Festival, [4] and the San Francisco Film Festival. [5]

At the Greenwich International Film Festival in 2017, it won Best Documentary Feature Film. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Farmer</span> American medical anthropologist and physician (1959–2022)

Paul Edward Farmer was an American medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer held an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he was a University Professor and the chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was the co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that since 1987 has provided direct health care services and undertaken research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. He was professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partners In Health</span> Non-profit health care organization

Partners In Health (PIH) is an international nonprofit public health organization founded in 1987 by Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Jim Yong Kim.

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Jim Yong Kim, also known as Kim Yong (김용/金墉), is an American physician and anthropologist who served as the 12th president of the World Bank from 2012 to 2019.

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Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World (2003) is a non-fiction, biographical work by American writer Tracy Kidder. The book traces the life of physician and anthropologist Paul Farmer with particular focus on his work fighting tuberculosis in Haiti, Peru and Russia.

Ophelia Magdalena Dahl is a British-American social justice and health care advocate. Dahl co-founded Partners In Health (PIH), a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor." She served as executive director for 16 years and has since chaired its board of directors.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joia Mukherjee</span> American public health doctor

Joia Stapleton Mukherjee is an associate professor with the Division of Global Health Equity at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Since 2000, she has served as the Chief Medical Officer of Partners In Health, an international medical non-profit founded by Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, and Jim Kim. She trained in Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics at the Massachusetts General Hospital and has an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Mukherjee has been involved in health care access and human rights issues since 1989, and she consults for the World Health Organization on the treatment of HIV and MDR-TB in developing countries. Her scholarly work focuses on the human rights aspect of HIV treatment and on the implementation of complex health interventions in resource-poor settings.

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Anne-christine d'Adesky is an American author, journalist and activist of French and Haitian descent living in New York. She has maintained a deep relationship with Haiti, reporting the 2010 earthquake from a feminist angle, especially noting the impact of the disaster on the lives of teenage girls. She has also contributed to humanitarian projects in East Africa, as well as conducting extensive research into HIV/AIDS and its treatment worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HIV/AIDS in Haiti</span>

With an estimated 150,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in 2016, Haiti has the most overall cases of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean and its HIV prevalence rates among the highest percentage-wise in the region. There are many risk-factor groups for HIV infection in Haiti, with the most common ones including lower socioeconomic status, lower educational levels, risky behavior, and lower levels of awareness regarding HIV and its transmission.

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The quality of health in Rwanda has historically been very low, both before and immediately after the 1994 genocide. In 1998, more than one in five children died before their fifth birthday, often from malaria. But in recent years Rwanda has seen improvement on a number of key health indicators. Between 2005 and 2013, life expectancy increased from 55.2 to 64.0, under-5 mortality decreased from 106.4 to 52.0 per 1,000 live births, and incidence of tuberculosis has dropped from 101 to 69 per 100,000 people. The country's progress in healthcare has been cited by the international media and charities. The Atlantic devoted an article to "Rwanda's Historic Health Recovery". Partners In Health described the health gains "among the most dramatic the world has seen in the last 50 years".

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University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) is a health sciences university in Rwanda. An initiative of Partners In Health, UGHE is a private, not-for-profit, accredited institution.

Jaime Bayona García is a Peruvian physician who focuses on public health and he has become a specialist in studying the epidemiology of tuberculosis. He is also known for his case studies on HIV/AIDS in Peru and other developing countries. Dr. Bayona has also done work on how public health systems should improve, in terms of providing the best approach to help the sick that cannot afford health care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas J. White</span> American businessman and philanthropist

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "bending-the-arc". www.sundance.org. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
  2. Burki, Talha Khan (2017-04-01). "Bending the Arc" (PDF). The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 5 (4): 258. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(17)30088-7 . ISSN   2213-2600.
  3. "BENDING THE ARC | Impact Partners Film". www.impactpartnersfilm.com. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
  4. "Bending the Arc - Miami Film Festival 2017". Miami Film Festival 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
  5. "Bending the Arc". San Francisco Film Society. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
  6. GIFF Makes an Impact, Especially With Women