‘Doctors Without Borders’ documentary offers unprecedented look

Hosted by Elizabeth Vargas, the film will be screened at 6:30 p.m. at AMC-Quail Springs 24, 2501 W Memorial; Cinemark-Tinseltown USA, 6001 N Martin Luther King Ave; and Hollywood Theater-Spotlight 14, 1100 N Interstate Drive, Norman.

Before "Living in Emergency,” the Nobel Peace Prize-winning doctors organization had never allowed a film company uncensored access to its field operations. But this film, produced by Mark Hopkins, Naisola Grimwood and Daniel Holton-Roth of Red Floor Pictures Production, is just that — an uncensored glimpse at the daily lives of four Doctors Without Borders physicians who are forced to confront the limits of their idealism in the face of overwhelming medical needs.

"We didn’t want to do a cliche hero story which a lot of other companies had wanted to do,” Hopkins said in a telephone interview. In fact, he said the filmmakers didn’t have a message or moral in mind for the film. Instead, they hoped to convey the honest day-to-day trials the doctors experienced amid the chaos of war-torn Congo and post-conflict Liberia.

The film interweaves the stories of four aid workers with Doctors Without Borders as they struggle to provide emergency medical care under the most extreme conditions.

"When it’s a medical situation, everyone’s pretty much focused on what’s going on at hand,” Hopkins said. "But having a camera in the middle of the Congo does generate quite a bit of attention, and people come out of nowhere to have their picture taken a bit.”

Two of the doctors featured are new recruits: a 26 year-old Australian doctor stranded in a remote bush clinic and an American surgeon struggling to cope under the load of emergency cases in a shattered capital city, both in Liberia.

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