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Chinese Independent Documentary :
CIDFA017:
Pediatric Department
Directors: Wang Hao
Length: 104min
Production Year: 2006
Synopsis：
This documentary tells what happened in the Pediatric Department in Ningguo People's hospital in Anhui province. This is the biggest and best local hospital, treating 60% of the patients of the region. The pediatric department is one of its busiest units. But after private Huatai hospital opened in Sep, 2004, the number of inpatients of this department was gradually decreased, which directly affected the doctors' income. Director Chen was the core of this department, who was intelligent and capable and led a clannish team. Being shorthanded, the doctors even have to work after the night shift. The doctors were exhausted, but since Chen was also overworked, they obeyed the arrangement without complaint. Only they were tired of being a doctor. Facing fierce competition, unsound professional surroundings and inept executives, doctors was worried and anxious, but nobody left. Led by Chen, hey began to fight a tiresome war in which there would be no winner.
Director’s Statement：
It took half a year to shoot this film. The director stayed with the doctors in the hospital everyday, and shoot about 100 hours' footage. Doctors trust him and didn't conceal any behavior from him. In this way, he was able to truthfully record what happened in this department during this special period: conflicts between doctors and patients, in doctors themselves and between doctors and executives, and life vs. death of helpless children, all in this relatively isolated space and in chilly contract with the monotony of the bureaucratic system. Everybody began to show a callous indifference. And when the competitions ended, nobody felt relieved, because nothing has changed.
I shot for about half a year. For the first time I looked at the doctors and the patients so closely for so long a time. I realized that, doctors are trying their best to do something; even they know their place in this powerful system. I cannot help feeling respectful to them. But I also find that, no matter what the doctors do, no matter what kind of personal characteristics or capabilities they have, they cannot change the results of the system.
This is life, under whose seemingly clearly-defined surface lies the essence of complexity and ambiguity. This documentary is only to display the other side of the life, without right-or-wrong judgment. But we cannot close our eyes and just pretend we didn't see it.
Director’s Bio:
Wang Hao studied documentary in Bijing Film academy after working in a hospital as a doctor for three years. His first documentary Pediatric Department