American Doctor Seeks to Share an Authentic, Unfiltered Account of Atrocities in Gaza

      To direct her debut feature documentary, American Doctor, director Poh Si Teng left her job and drained her entire bank account.

      In 2024, Teng, who previously served as a documentary commissioner for Al Jazeera English and worked for The New York Times, became disillusioned with the Israel-Hamas War.

      “It was incredibly hard to witness respected journalists and staff from Al Jazeera being targeted and killed,” Teng shared during a Q&A session in Copenhagen on Tuesday.

      Teng was in Denmark to present American Doctor at the 23rd Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), where the film debuted at Sundance.

      “A year into the genocide, I had run out of words and didn’t want to engage with anyone,” Teng explained while talking with TIFF programmer Thom Powers at CPH:DOX’s Kunsthal Charlottenborg. “I felt a lot of anger followed by despair. I wasn’t sure how to handle those feelings.”

      Then Teng, who produced the Oscar-nominated St. Louis Superman and served as an Emmy Award-winning executive producer on Patrice: The Movie, saw Dr. Mark Perlmutter on television. The Jewish American physician was discussing his recent volunteer work at a Gaza hospital.

      Teng was struck not only by Dr. Perlmutter's contributions in Palestine but also by his honest response to questions regarding Israeli politics and ceasefire promises.

      “He stated, ‘There is no ceasefire,’” Teng recalled. “I thought, ‘Who is this guy?’ So I decided to look him up.”

      Teng met Dr. Perlmutter in New York City, where he connected her with fellow doctors Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a non-practicing Zoroastrian American. All three physicians were risking their lives to save people in Gaza, and Teng immediately felt compelled to create a documentary about them.

      “For years, I thought the industry didn’t need another documentary director,” Teng shared with Powers. However, as a U.S. citizen, she felt a strong obligation to tell this story.

      “I wanted to bring this reality to American audiences,” Teng stated. “This isn’t just Israel’s war on Gaza; it’s America’s war, with U.S. weapons being used to kill children and innocents.”

      On making American Doctor, production for the 93-minute documentary started in December 2024. Initially, Dr. Perlmutter intended to bring Teng into Gaza as a scrub nurse, but the director knew that approach wouldn’t work.

      “I explained, ‘Mark, the Israelis control the border. Anyone can easily find out I’m not a scrub nurse,’” Teng said.

      Instead, she hired two local Palestinian cinematographers, Arthur Nazaryan and Ramzy Haddad, and collaborated with the doctors remotely as they volunteered at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza.

      “They shoot people with cameras there,” Teng remarked. “So, asking them to film with these doctors was quite a challenge.”

      Nazaryan and Haddad urged Teng, “Please bring this story back to the U.S.”

      American Doctor opens with Dr. Perlmutter showing Teng photographs of Palestinian children who have died. Teng feels uncertain about including such graphic images in the film, as she wants to maintain the children’s dignity.

      “You’re not honoring them unless you allow their memory and bodies to convey the story of this trauma, this genocide,” Dr. Perlmutter asserts in the film. “You’re not offering them a service by avoiding their images. This is what my tax dollars achieved. And your tax dollars too… Pixelating [the photos] is journalistic malpractice.”

      The documentary also illustrates the difficult choices the physicians must make about which patients to attempt to save amidst an overwhelming influx of casualties.

      Throughout the film, the doctors’ grueling work treating traumatic injuries is interspersed with their attempts to inform Western media about the severe violence occurring in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes, often met with apathy.

      During a Q&A for American Doctor at Sundance, Dr. Ahmad admitted he was initially doubtful of Teng's mission. “I expressed, ‘I really hope this ends up being worth all of your time and the effort of your whole team. I just felt that people wouldn’t be interested in hearing this.’”

      Although American Doctor has yet to secure a U.S. distributor, Teng remains hopeful that American viewers will eventually have the opportunity to see it.

      “If they saw it, they wouldn’t accept this,” Teng remarked. “No one should be able to accept it.”

      You can find more coverage of our film festival here.

      Main image: American Doctor, courtesy of CPH:DOX.