Sundance Film Festival<\/a> on January 24, 2026 in Park City, Utah.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJosh Telles for Deadline<\/p>\n
\n\tIn an interview with Deadline, Teng says, \u201cIt\u2019s such a delicate balance of trying to show the reality of what is happening and also preserve the dignity of those in the images. And that was something that we struggled with a lot. I still wrestle with it. I hope it\u2019s enough, and I hope it\u2019s true to what happened as a record, but also that people will watch through to the end. And that\u2019s why that first scene with Mark is where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAmerican Doctor shows Perlmutter and Sidhwa in the operating theater at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, Gaza, working to repair the bodies of severely injured kids. Dr. Ahmad conducted five medical missions to Gaza and is shown in American Doctor trying to reach Gaza once again, but he\u2019s blocked by Israeli authorities. Press notes for the film say Dr. Ahmad was prevented from entering Gaza \u201cbecause of his Palestinian heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe documentary also follows the physicians as they make appearances at conferences in the U.S. and as they\u2019re interviewed on American media about what they witnessed in Gaza. Those public appearances in which they speak candidly have earned the doctors praise in some quarters and vitriol in others. In the film, Dr. Ahmad reads an email he received shortly after being interviewed on CNN by anchor-reporter Dana Bash.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201c\u2019Doctor,’\u201d the email reads, \u201c\u2018you\u2019re just as antisemitic as those Hamas terrorists you probably have treated in your practice in Godforsaken Gaza. Why did you not treat Jewish hostages, especially frail old people and babies? Is that not what a doctor is supposed to do? Can\u2019t wait for Hamas to renege on hostage deal before Sunday deadline so that Israel can finish the job of eliminating their presence forever of every single Palestinian member of Hamas. Chew on that fact, doctor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDr. Ahmad shares his reaction on camera, saying, \u201cThis is the kind of really frustrating part of this. I\u2019m not a spokesperson for anybody. I\u2019m not \u2018pro\u2019 anything. I\u2019m a Palestinian who wants to see babies that look like my babies not being killed anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDoctors Ahmad, Sidhwa and Perlmutter could easily have been killed while volunteering their services in Gaza. The film notes 1,700 healthcare workers have lost their lives in Gaza since Israel launched its retaliatory attack on the occupied territory in October 2023 following the Hamas terror attack on Israel. According to the World Health Organization and the UN, 94 percent of the hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including the Nasser Medical Complex. \u201cThe targeted destruction of Gaza\u2019s healthcare system by the Israel Defense Forces amounts to \u2018medicide,\u2019\u201d two UN Special Rapporteurs asserted last August.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe are underlining it again, that hospitals in war zones are being targeted. It\u2019s undeniable,\u201d comments Oscar-nominated producer Kirstine Barfod (The Cave), describing the situation in Gaza as a \u201cbig political, global question. What we do and what we have done with this film is that we zoom in in a moment in time and we filmed in real time\u2026 We\u2019re seeing this with the eyes of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAmericans, it\u2019s suggested in the film, need to understand the immense loss of Palestinian civilian lives because of U.S. government support of Israel\u2019s military. \u201cThis is what my tax dollars did,\u201d Dr. Perlmutter says, pointing to the photo of the six killed Palestinian children. \u201cThat\u2019s what my neighbor\u2019s tax dollars did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe U.S. has spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel since October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, according to a report by Brown University\u2019s Watson School of International and Public Affairs. \u201cU.S. arms have been central to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel Police operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTeng, who was born in Malaysia and became a U.S. citizen in 2024, says, \u201cWhat we\u2019re hoping to show our audience, especially Americans, is like, what are we doing about this? Because none of this could continue without our government saying, \u2018Go ahead, here\u2019s the green light.\u2019 So, I want to bring it home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAlong with Teng, American Doctor is produced by Barfod, a Danish producer based in New York, and Reem Haddad, a Palestinian Canadian producer with two decades of experience covering the Middle East and Africa. Executive producers include Simon Kilmurry, Hamza Ali, Rasha Mansouri, Hassan Elmasry, Rami Elghandour, Andreas Dalsgaard, Mehdi Hasan, Juan Pablo Raymond, and Kiran Alvi.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film has distribution lined up through Watermelon Pictures<\/a>, a film production and distribution company \u201crooted in creative resistance,\u201d according to its website. \u201cWe aim to entertain audiences and enrich the cultural landscape by promoting stories that reflect the perspectives and experiences of Palestinians as well as other marginalized groups around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tBarfod notes, \u201cWe have a global distribution, but we also made a holdback agreement. This means if we sell to HBO or Netflix after Friday [the world premiere], it will go to them first and then eventually it will go back to Watermelon. If we do not sell, then we will do the full release from Watermelon+.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTeng appears to take in stride the possibility of criticism over the film.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIf there is a legitimate fear to be had, it is as an American and not doing the right thing and speaking because we have so much power from here. I don\u2019t want to think about anything else other than that,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you\u2019re so scared about everything, you\u2019re never going to do anything. And there\u2019s no control of external factors, but there\u2019s one thing that we all have control of, and it\u2019s really ourselves. So, I\u2019m just going to go with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bodies. Six young Palestinian children, maybe three or four years of age, lined up on a gurney,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[203841,88,206,203842,98560,98265,167827],"class_list":["post-429164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-american-doctor","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-poh-si-teng","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-watermelon-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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