Filmmaker Quit ABC, Drained Savings to Direct Gaza Doc
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- Poh Si Teng quit her executive job at ABC News and drained her savings after colleague Samer Abu Daqqa was killed by an Israeli drone strike in December 2023 while on assignment, saying she 'couldn't continue as I was.'
- 'American Doctor' follows three U.S. doctors — Jewish physician Mark Perlmutter, Zoroastrian surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, and Palestinian American Dr. Thaer Ahmad — treating wounded children at a Gaza hospital while publicly calling out the bombings they witness.
- Teng deliberately excluded 'Palestine' or 'Gaza' from the title, citing American audience appetite for medical dramas and describing the framing as a collective 'Trojan Horse approach' with producer Hamza Ali.
- Watermelon Pictures, the Palestinian-owned distributor behind 'The Encampments' and 'From Ground Zero,' boarded as U.S. distributor in April after the film's Sundance premiere, beating out competing offers.
- The opening scene features a tense on-camera ethics debate between Teng and Perlmutter over showing uncensored images of wounded children — footage Teng ultimately kept, saying 'you show too little, it's not real.'
- Hamza Ali said a key goal is pushing medical NGOs to be 'more vocal,' noting that doctors and healthcare workers are being 'doxed for speaking out and facing repercussions.'
- Free screenings are being offered to doctors, nurses, and medical students in Los Angeles and Chicago, timed ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.
Why it matters: The film's release lands ahead of U.S. midterm elections as healthcare workers face professional retaliation for speaking out about Gaza, giving Teng and Watermelon Pictures a narrow window to convert sympathetic medical audiences into political pressure. By stripping 'Palestine' from the title and reframing the crisis as a medical drama, the filmmakers are betting visibility among healthcare professionals — a constituency with institutional lobbying clout — can shift public pressure where conventional journalism has stalled.
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