Date/Time
Date(s) - 16/02/2017
7:00 pm - 8:45 pm
Location
Alliance française du Bengale
Categories
Docteur Jack – the film, a compelling film about the founder of Calcutta Rescue `Doctor Jack traces the journey of the man who inspired the film “The City of Joy”, Dr. Jack Preger. A man of extraordinary fate, a Welsh farmer who decides at the age of 35 to become a doctor. After attending the refugee camps in Bangladesh at the end of the civil war, working with Mother Teresa for a while, Dr. Jack decides to travel the shanty towns of Calcutta to provide free care for the most disadvantaged. He invented a movement that has since become world famous: Street Medicine. The film artfully shows the difficulties and challenges that street doctors face daily and the years of struggle to obtain the necessary authorisations to practice a form of medicine most needed to care for those who are not able to get help elsewhere. The documentary centres around what made an orthodox Jew from Manchester become a passionate fighter on behalf of the destitute in Bengal. Luckily the film does not focus on the misery of the poor living in slums or under bridges and along road sides, but rather shows the positive small actions that can be made to head in the direction of change. Instead the audience can observe Jack’s insistence on living simply and humbly above the school he created to educate the unwanted sons and daughters in the Sonagachi red light district hoping to allow them to have a better chance in the future as well as his constant insistence of seeing the actions carried out by Calcutta rescue and talking to the community, the patients. By seeing everything for himself before, he can better judge possible solutions to help improve their health and quality of life. The different scenes shows his work alongside the foundation he created to overview the difficult medical cases they deal with daily, whether it is at the Tuberculosis centre, the HIV clinics or medical vans. Other projects that he defends and insists in pursuing are carried out in more remote areas where water pumps are being installed to help with clean water access and avoid the arsenic poisoning that plagues the area with lots of skin infections. The film immerses the audience into Jack’s world while also showing a criss-cross of views from the NGO’s patients, students that Jack’s foundation subsidises to pursue high school and staff who make things possible. It casts a light of hope convincing us, the audience, that things are possible with a lot of dedication to the cause.
The duration of the movie is of 52 minutes and it will be followed by a Question-Answer session.
The Best Documentary Jury Award Winner in 5th Mumbai Shorts International Film Festival-16
Website of the Docteur Jack – The Film
Website of Benoit Lange
