Remote Area Medical
Synopsis
A debate over healthcare has been raging nationwide, but what's been lost in the discussion of mandates, payers, pre-existing conditions and deficits are the American citizens who live every day without proper access to healthcare, afraid of injury and suffering through minor illnesses in the hopes that they'll just get better on their own. REMOTE AREA MEDICAL documents the annual two-day “pop-up” medical clinic put on by the non-profit Remote Area Medical (RAM) in the NASCAR speedway in Bristol, TN. Even though this small town is only a few hundred miles from our nation's capitol, access to proper medical care for many in region might as well be worlds away. Instead of a film about policy, about which system is better, will cover more, or cost less, REMOTE AREA MEDICAL is a film about people, about a one-of-a-kind experience and an unlikely community that arises in the same place every year.
Connect
Learn more about REMOTE AREA MEDICAL:
See the Film
The Filmmakers
Jeff Reichert Director, Producer
Reichert's first feature film, the documentary GERRYMANDERING, premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, where it was named one of the best of the festival by New York magazine before going on to screen theatrically nationwide. His second feature film, REMOTE AREA MEDICAL, had its world premiere at the 2013 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. He is currently at work on the new documentary THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, to be released in 2014. Reichert is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of the popular online film journal Reverse Shot, which maintains a devoted readership of over 100,000 monthly. His work in distribution includes release campaigns for some of the most theatrically successful documentaries in recent years including the Academy Award nominees CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS, ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, JESUS CAMP, NO END IN SIGHT, and the Academy Award-winning MAN ON WIRE for Magnolia Pictures and JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK for IFC Films among many other fiction and nonfiction features.
Farihah Zaman Director, Producer
A graduate of the Film and Electronic Arts program at Bard College, Farihah Zaman began working in film as a programmer for the Film South Asia documentary film festival before moving to New York in 2005, where she became the Acquisitions Manager at independent film distribution company Magnolia Pictures. In 2008 she coordinated IFP's No Borders program, the only international co-production market in the U.S., before becoming Program Manager of The Flaherty Seminar, where she helped launch the Flaherty NYC screening series at Anthology Film Archive. Zaman is a freelance journalist and writes regularly for The Huffington Post, The AV Club, Filmmaker Magazine, and online film journal Reverse Shot, among others. She co-directed the feature documentary REMOTE AREA MEDICAL with Jeff Reichert, and is in production on the new documentary THIS TIME NEXT YEAR, to be released in 2014.
Festivals & Awards
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
2013
Official Selection
Hot Docs International Film Festival
2013
Official Selection
Independent Film Festival Boston
2013
Official Selection
BAM Cinemafest
2013
Official Selection
Reviews
“Thoroughly cinematic...directed with poetic eloquence.”
-Indiewire
“A vision of the apocalypse happening in our backyard.”
-Village Voice
“Zaman and Reichert approach all their subjects with clear-eyed empathy and allow the agitprop to emerge from the humanity on display.”
-Time Out New York
“Tender, sobering, and eye-opening.”
-Hammer to Nail
“These stories aren't unlike a country ballad, and are arranged with a sensitivity to detail and the lives behind them, though not without interludes of rough humor.”
-Wall Street Journal