For the two years following October of 2023, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has claimed the lives of more than 1,700 healthcare workers (a number that’s surely ballooned in the intervening months). This stat comes as a post-script to American Doctor, the feature debut of documentary director Poh Si Teng, which covers a select number of doctors as they fight the uphill battle of saving as many Gazans’ lives as possible. But rather than an on-the-ground accounting of the everyday struggles of the medical professionals tasked with helping, the film also shows their advocacy for the American government and media to accurately portray the realities they face.

Teng mainly follows doctors Perlmutter, Sidhwa, and Ahmad, the latter a Palestinian-American, and their work at the Nasser Medical Center in Gaza. Early in American Doctor, Perlmutter urgently pleads with Teng not to shy away from showing the incredibly graphic images of injured and deceased children. Yes, they’re disturbing and hard to look at, but blurring or cutting away from them robs the victims and their families of the dignity and justice they deserve. And it’s this tenacity which gives the film its power, a haunting reminder of what’s been so easily lost among the headlines and social media posts.

Besides righteous anger, the prevailing emotion to be felt after walking away from American Doctor is helplessness. That feeling of helplessness stems from the clear evidence available to all across the world, the impassioned pleas from Americans of all races, religions, backgrounds, etc., and the continued atrocities committed by Israel. This makes the film sound like a total bummer, and yes, it is necessarily difficult to watch at times, but Teng doesn’t drown the proceedings in misery. There are moments between the chaos when Perlmutter laughs and shares stories with the nurses and staff at Nasser, a necessary reminder that life must continue on in Gaza, regardless of the bombings and threats. Sidhwa and Perlmutter spend just as much time in America as they do in Palestine, and when back home, they’re busy attending conferences or on CNN speaking out against the American government’s financial support for Israel.

Urgent as these segments are, they lack the power of the time in Gaza. A kind of spiritual successor to documentaries like The White Helmets or For Sama, Teng’s film works most effectively when detailing the tiny ways that both Israel and America have made life difficult for healthcare workers. Supplies are dwindling. The only x-ray machine in the building isn’t working, and there’s a blockade for the necessary parts to fix it. Both governments have made the simple act of entering Gaza difficult because of various bureaucratic loopholes, leaving Dr. Ahmad behind. Oh yeah, and there’s the constant threat of imminent destruction on the horizon at all times.

The focus here is not on the victims in Gaza, but on the doctors advocating on their behalf. Unfortunately Teng isn’t given access to the doctors’ conversations with lawmakers – a scene later in the film sees one meeting with Senator John Cornyn and goes about as well as you’d expect – but plenty of news coverage is widely available of elected officials kowtowing to the Israeli government’s interests. As long as those in power control the narrative around Gaza, nothing is likely to change. One scene shows Dr. Ahmad speaking with an Israeli news outlet, refuting the government’s justification for bombing a hospital, relying on CGI renderings of underground terrorist bunkers. In spite of his infuriatingly indisputable evidence, Ahmad knows that the segment likely won’t actually be aired. Those who have followed the genocide in Gaza regularly likely won’t walk away from American Doctor with much new information. No matter, as the raw imagery and simple message of the film is powerful enough to speak for itself.

American Doctor is now in select theaters nationwide and will expand in additional cities soon.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• The Documentary branch is an unpredictable as any, year after year. If enough voters can see the film, it stands a chance at an Oscar nomination. But a small distributor, and the impending documentary Naza in competition at the Venice Film Festival, complicates matters.