“American Doctor” starts strongly with an emotional argument between filmmaker and protagonist. The latter pushes for showing the bodies of dead Palestinian children on screen, to convey the enormity of the carnage in the war on Gaza. The filmmaker wants to “preserve their dignity” by pixelating the photos. The protagonist wins, and the audience sees the images as they are.
Thus does this documentary set out its moral purpose. The narrative captures the experiences of doctors trying to save lives during wartime, while ensuring they tell the world the truth about what they are witnessing. The arguments about what to show and not show, and who gets to tell which story, are what distinguish “American Doctor” beyond documenting its protagonists’ trips to Gaza.
Premiering in the U.S. Documentary competition at Sundance, the film follows three American doctors different in temperament, experience, age and background. There is Palestinian American Thaer Ahmad,…