Watermelon Pictures Picks Up 'American Doctor' Doc
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- Watermelon Pictures, founded by brothers Badie and Hamza Ali, acquired North American distribution rights to 'American Doctor,' directed by Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Poh Si Teng.
- The documentary follows three physicians — Palestinian American Dr. Thaer Ahmad, Jewish American Dr. Mark Perlmutter, and Zoroastrian-background Dr. Feroze Sidhwa — described as friends 'who couldn't be more different but are bound by the shared oath to save lives.'
- 'American Doctor' has won four major festival awards: the Tom Rankin Audience Award at Full Frame, the Amnesty International Award and Peter Wintonick Audience Award at Thessaloniki, and audience and journalism prizes at Salem Film Fest, plus an honorable mention at CPH:DOX.
- Watermelon Pictures earned an Oscar nomination this year for 'The Voice of Hind Rajab,' another Gaza-focused film about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed in 2024, signaling the distributor's growing portfolio on the conflict.
- The physicians have publicly urged Americans to reconsider U.S. military aid to Israel — totaling more than $21 billion since October 7, 2023 per Brown University's Watson School — with UNICEF reporting at least 50,000 Palestinian children killed or wounded in Gaza since October 2023.
- Dr. Perlmutter called their Gaza experience 'collectively far worse than all of those other experiences combined, even 9/11,' saying they 'witnessed the largest pediatric homicide in our lifetimes.'
- The deal was negotiated by Hamza Ali with Tiny Boxer Films' Poh Si Teng, producer Kirstine Barfod, and executive producer Simon Kilmurry; Cinetic Media handled domestic sales and Autlook Filmsales is overseeing international sales at Cannes' Marché Du Film.
Why it matters: Watermelon Pictures is positioning itself as the go-to North American distributor for Gaza-focused documentary, following its Oscar-nominated 'The Voice of Hind Rajab.' The acquisition gives wide distribution to physician testimony that explicitly ties U.S. tax dollars — $21 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023 — to what the doctors call 'the largest pediatric homicide in our lifetimes,' turning a film-industry deal into a potential flashpoint in the domestic debate over U.S. policy toward Israel.
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