Body Team 12 | |
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Directed by | David Darg |
Written by | David Darg |
Produced by | David Darg Bryn Mooser |
Cinematography | David Darg |
Edited by | David Darg |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | HBO |
Release date |
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Running time | 13 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Body Team 12 is a 2015 short-documentary film about the Red Cross workers of Liberia, who collected dead bodies during the height of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The story is told by Garmai Sumo, a female worker who served as a nurse during the epidemic. It is directed by David Darg and produced by Darg and Bryn Mooser, while Olivia Wilde and Paul Allen of Vulcan Productions are executive producers. [1]
The documentary was well received by critics and earned widespread critical acclaim. It won the Best Documentary Short award at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. Body Team 12 is nominated for the Documentary Short Subject category at the 88th Academy Awards. [2]
Garmai Sumo is the only female member of Body Team 12, a group of medical professionals who handle the bodies of the victims of Ebola in Liberia. The film focuses on Sumo's perspective of the crisis in her country. [3]
The film won a Best Documentary award at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. The jury explained, "The winning film is a spiritual and inspiring story of personal courage and commitment. The filmmaking team takes us on a fearless journey that restores our faith in humanity and inspires viewers to be optimistic despite facing the most extreme challenges." [4]
Street Fight is a 2005 documentary film by Marshall Curry, chronicling the 2002 Newark mayoral election which pitted upstart Cory Booker against the incumbent Sharpe James for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Other credits include Rory Kennedy, Liz Garbus, Mary Manhardt, Marisa Karplus, Catherine Jones, and Adam Etline. Street Fight screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and was later aired on the PBS series P.O.V. on July 5, 2005, and CBC Newsworld in Canada on May 7, 2006. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Sean Fine is an American cinematographer, producer and film director whose film Inocente won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Documentary. He directs his films with his wife, Andrea Nix Fine. The Fines' first feature-length film War/Dance about child soldiers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2007. In 2013 their film, Life According to Sam won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary filmmaking. The Fines launched a boutique film studio Change Content to develop documentaries that affect way audiences feel about critical issues. Change Content's first film LFG premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was instrumental in the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team achieving equal pay.
Jonathan David Stack is an American documentary filmmaker. He is also a co-founder of World Vasectomy Day.
Bill Guttentag is an American dramatic and documentary film writer-producer-director. His films have premiered at the Sundance, Cannes, Telluride and Tribeca film festivals, and he has won two Academy Awards.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney. The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Documentary. The film had its theatrical release in New York City on November 7, 2008. It had cumulative gross worldwide of $90,066.
Andrew Rossi is an American filmmaker, Emmy nominated for directing, writing and producing The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), Ivory Tower (2014) and Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011).
Vulcan Productions produced documentary films, television programming and virtual reality experiences that drove awareness around environmental and social issues. The company was founded in 1997 by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister Jody Allen. It closed in 2021.
Rebecca Cammisa is an American documentary filmmaker two-times Oscar nominated, Emmy award winner, and founder of Documentress Films.
Daniel Junge is an American documentary filmmaker. On February 26, 2012, he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film Saving Face, which he co-directed along with Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Bryn Mooser is a filmmaker and entrepreneur. In 2012, Mooser co-founded RYOT, a media company specializing in documentary film, virtual/augmented reality and branded content. Over his career, he has produced more than 200 linear and immersive films garnering an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, a Peabody and a Cannes Lion. Mooser sold RYOT to Verizon in 2016, becoming a senior vice president. While at Verizon, Mooser built the branded content studio for AOL/Yahoo, HuffPost and Tumblr.
Candescent Films is an American film production company that produces and finances documentary and narrative films that explore social issues.
The Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa has had a large effect on the culture of most of the West African countries. In most instances, the effect is a rather negative one as it has disrupted many Africans’ traditional norms and practices. For instance, many West African communities rely on traditional healers and witch doctors, who use herbal remedies, massage, chant and witchcraft to cure just about any ailment. Therefore, it is difficult for West Africans to adapt to foreign medical practices. Specifically, West African resistance to Western medicine is prominent in the region, which calls for severe distrust of Western and modern medical personnel and practices.(see Ebola conspiracies below.)
RYOT is an American immersive media company founded in 2012 by Bryn Mooser, David Darg, Molly DeWolf Swenson and Martha Rogers, based in Los Angeles. It specializes in documentary film production, commercial production, virtual reality and augmented reality.
Andrea Nix Fine is an American documentary film director whose film Inocente won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2013. She directs her films with her husband, Sean Fine. The Fines were also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2007 for War/Dance, a story about the power of music to heal and transform the lives of children living in Uganda's war zone, and their 2013 HBO documentary Life According to Sam was honored with a Peabody and Emmy award. Nix is a 1991 graduate of Colby College. The Fines launched a boutique film studio Change Content to develop documentaries that affect way audiences feel about critical issues. Change Content's first film LFG (film) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was instrumental in the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team achieving equal pay.
David Darg is an American director and cinematographer. In 2011 he co-founded the media company RYOT with Bryn Mooser. He received critical praise for his documentary Body Team 12 which garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary at the 88th Academy Awards.
Gabo Arora is an American filmmaker, creative technologist and Founder/CEO of LIGHTSHED, a studio focusing on emerging technologies. He is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he is the Founding Director of the new Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technology (ISET) program and lab. Formerly, he was a Senior Policy Advisor for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN's first Creative Director, with over 15 years of field experience. He has directed, produced and pioneered a series of virtual reality documentaries for the United Nations that have premiered at film festivals, featured at the World Economic Forum in Davos, screened at the White House, and have exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art's inaugural program on immersive storytelling.
Nikyatu Jusu is an American independent writer, director, producer, editor and assistant professor in film and video at George Mason University. Jusu's works center on the complexities of Black female characters and in particular, displaced, immigrant women in the United States. Her work includes African Booty Scratcher (2007), Flowers (2015), Suicide By Sunlight (2019), and Nanny, which received the Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. She has endorsed the use of Generative artificial intelligence in filmmaking and uses the technology in her work.
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Jennifer Tiexiera is an American documentary filmmaker. She is known for directing the films P.S. Burn This Letter Please and Subject.