The Heart of the Emergency Room (2024)

Our Body

In a Parisian public hospital, Claire Simon questions what it means to live in women’s bodies, filming their diversity, singularity and their beauty in all stages throughout life. Unique stories of desires, fears and struggles unfold, including the one of the filmmaker herself.

The First Wave

When Covid-19 hit New York City in 2020, filmmaker Matthew Heineman gained unique access to one of New York’s hardest-hit hospital systems. The resulting film focuses on the doctors, nurses, and patients on the frontlines during the “first wave” from March to June 2020. Their distinct storylines each serve as a microcosm to understand how the city persevered through the worst pandemic in a century

Grey Matter

We follow neurosurgeons Clemens Dirven and Arnoud Vincent of the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam in this documentary during the treatment of three patients with a brain tumor.

Madame Hofmann

"Welcome to my life", Sylvie Hofmann repeats this sentence almost all day long. Sylvie has been a nurse for 40 years at the North Hospital of Marseille. Her life is running. Between patients, her sick mother, her husband and her daughter, she has always devoted her life to helping others. What if she decided to think a little about herself? To retire? Does she have the right, but above all, does she really want to?

Sicko

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

Big Charity: The Death of America's Oldest Hospital

This documentary film includes never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews to tell the story of Charity Hospital, from its roots to its controversial closing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. From the firsthand accounts of healthcare providers and hospital employees who withstood the storm inside the hospital, to interviews with key players involved in the closing of Charity and the opening of New Orleans’ newest hospital, “Big Charity” shares the untold, true story around its closure and sheds new light on the sacrifices made for the sake of progress.

Phases of Matter

Phases of Matter follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.

The Linen

A subdued observation of daily life in a children's hospital. The driver of a delivery van regularly delivers clean linen to the wards where small, tense dramas of life and death are played out.

Harrow Hospital Carnival

Harrow’s extraordinary and opulent pageant, and seaside holidays on the south coast.

What Did You Take?

Stresses recognition and treatment of drug abuse emergencies, accurate identification of symptoms, and immediate clinical procedures. Presents scenes of actual cases in the emergency room and adjoining physician's offices of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Viewers observe emergency treatment of patients in the major classes of drugs commonly abused, opiates, depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. The film demonstrates to health professionals that successful management of drug overdoses can save most lives and avert additional organic and psychiatric complications.

Bliss

After a tragic series of events in his life, Rob discovers the over-the-counter drug known as codeine. The effects of the pill are so strong and addictive, that soon, Rob becomes dependant and consumes them daily. But the less he feels the more he misses, as his life degrades into a deep, dangerous, oblivion of bliss.

A & E: When Patients Attack

Hospital staff are reporting more violence and anti-social behaviour than ever before. In 2015, 8 staff were assaulted every hour – a new record high. At The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham – one of the UK’s biggest hospitals – they think they have the answer. Here a private security force of 46 uniformed guards, and a sophisticated CCTV system, keep staff and patients safe. A colourful mixture of characters ranging from ex-soldiers, to bouncers, to former elite sportsmen, it’s the security team’s job to keep the hospital running smoothly. With more than 2 million visitors they have to deal with all aspects of crime and anti-social behaviour. All against a back drop of life changing and life saving procedures.

Reimagining A Buffalo Landmark

The Richardson Olmsted Campus, a former psychiatric center and National Historic Landmark, is seeing new life as it undergoes restoration and adaptation to a modern use.

À votre santé

Focuses on the state of the Quebec health system in the early 1970s. This film reveals the harsh reality of emergency rooms. There, medical teams, facing a serious shortage of staff, are facing a real invasion of patients. The technical means, often insufficient, make the task even more difficult.

And Outside Life Goes On

The small regional hospitals of Vevey, Montreux, Aigle and Monthey are closing in favor of the new, larger, more adapted and more modern hospital in Rennaz. As the construction of the new hospital progresses, emergency physicians Eric and Frédérique tell us about their daily life in the face of illness and death.

On the Edge

Things are busy at the Paris hospital where young psychiatrist Jamal and his colleagues work. The place is run down, the staff are exhausted, budgets are constantly being slashed. You know the story, but you’ve rarely seen it conveyed as engagingly as in ‘On the Edge’, which employs a handheld camera and meaningful, artistic interventions to observe the daily routine at the psychiatric ward. The deeply sympathetic Jamal is an everyday hero with an exemplary, humanistic disposition, for whom the most important prerequisites for mental health – and for a healthy society in general – are good relationships with other people. He puts his philosophy into practice by listening patiently, giving good advice and organising theatre exercises based on Molière. Realism and idealism, however, are in balance for the young doctor, at least as long as the institutional framework holds up.

Mission COVID

The COVID crisis triggered a real war against the virus. Civilian or military, medical, paramedical or logistical personnel all joined forces to try to deal with it. At the Hôpital d'Instructions des Armées in Percy, in the south of Paris, this real tour de force is both human and technical. On every floor, the staff was confronted with this crisis situation requiring cohesion, adaptation, commitment, immediate decisions, unprecedented actions... with a common objective: to unite to save lives. What has this crisis changed in their profession?

Emergency Ward

This 1959 documentary short is a frank portrait of the daily operations inside the Montreal General Hospital’s emergency ward.

Urgences : Soigne et tais-toi

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Click to Ransom

A small rural hospital in Japan battles an international cybercriminal gang that is holding them ransom with their stolen patient data.

Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom

Naomi Kawase's documentary about Nishii Kazuo, a photo critic. He is the last chief editor for the Camera Mainichi magazine, rushing through his time with Araki Nobuyoshi and Moriyama Daido as provocative artists in the photograph world.

Donauspital

The daily workins of Austria's Danube Hospital.

Hospital City

As debate in Canada and the world rages over health care, Hospital City offers a moving, human portrait of the people whom the issues touch most closely.

Perfecting the Art of Longing

Cut off from his loved ones due to the strict COVID-19 lockdown at the long-term care facility where he lives, a quadriplegic rabbi is filmed by his daughter while reflecting on love, mortality and longing.

God Vulture and Human

The film explores the subject of organ donation through the lens of transplant coordinators, highlighting their role in the process of organ donation, retrieval and transplantation.

Le dernier souffle, au cœur de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal

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El triangle rodó

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On Call

At the consulting service for immigrants at the Avicenne Hospital in suburban Paris, we observe the sorrow and powerlessness of the immigrants who come here.

Prince George's Visit to Scunthorpe

Prince George, who later became the Duke of Kent, takes in some dramatic scenes in a local steelworks, opens a trunk road, and visits the War Memorial Hospital to open a new nurses' home - where his presence is eagerly awaited by giggling nurses.

Snapshots of China: Shaoyang Hospital, Hunan

Rare insight into the health work of Methodist missionaries in rural Shaoyang, Hunan Province, South Central China.

Kids Corner: Jasper's Hospital Experience

A 1984 special from Kids Corner that teaches kids what happens at the hospital.

False Faces

The philandering Dr. Silas Brenton is fired from his position at a large hospital and given 24 hours to vacate the state. He sets himself up in Chicago as a "prestigious" plastic surgeon to the stars. However, Brenton's silver tongue can't cover up his dubious methods, and an investigation into his practice is launched by the examining board of plastic surgeons. A delirious film à clef based on the loathsome career of Henry J. Schireson, the self-styled “King of Quacks”.

No Way Out

Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.

Agítese antes de usarla

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Syndromes and a Century

A story about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s parents who were both doctors, and his memories of growing up in a hospital environment.

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder

After returning home from the war, Vietnam veteran Julius Vrooder resides in a veteran's hospital, where he has been vaguely diagnosed as "psychiatrically impaired." Taking the news with an air of initially lighthearted defiance, Vrooder escapes and sets up camp under a highway, where he builds a paranoia-driven booby-trapped bunker for himself. Falling in love with not-so-bright nurse Zanni, Vrooder soon plans to elope with her to a remote Canadian outpost.

Britannia Hospital

Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.

Harry Brown

An elderly ex-serviceman and widower looks to avenge his best friend's murder by doling out his own form of justice.

Tell-Tale

A man's recently transplanted heart leads him on a frantic search to find the donor's killer before a similar fate befalls him.

Wit

A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.

The Nun's Story

After leaving a wealthy Belgian family to become a nun, Sister Luke struggles with her devotion to her vows during crisis, disappointment, and World War II.

Article 99

Dr. Richard Sturgess leads a team of compassionate doctors at a veteran's hospital. Along with Drs. Morgan, Handleman and Van Dorn, he fights to deliver adequate care to needy veterans in the face of funding cuts and a corrupt administration. To succeed, the staff may have to bend the rules and circumvent the villainous "Article 99," a bureaucratic loophole that prevents veterans from receiving the benefits they deserve.

Death Wish 3

Architect/vigilante Paul Kersey arrives back in New York City and is forcibly recruited by a crooked police chief to fight street crime caused by a large gang terrorizing the neighborhoods.

Anand

Dr. Bhaskar Bannerjee struggles with his patients' suffering and the darkness and poverty he confronts daily. He treats cancer patient Anand who upon learning of his impending death determines to use the time he has left to the absolute fullest.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown

After the death of his girlfriend's daughter from a drug overdose, Paul Kersey takes on the local drug cartel.

Shooting Fish

Two con artists hire an unwitting medical-school student as a secretary for their latest scam.

12 Days with God

A man puts his faith in God when complications arise from two surgeries to remove a cancerous growth from behind his eye.

Arrhythmia

Oleg is a young gifted paramedic. His wife Katya works as a nurse at the hospital emergency department. She loves Oleg, but is fed up with him caring more about patients than her. She tells him she wants a divorce. The new head of Oleg’s EMA department is a cold-hearted manager who’s got new strict rules to implement. Oleg couldn’t care less about the rules – he’s got lives to save; his attitude gets him in trouble with the new boss. The crisis at work coincides with the personal life crisis. Caught up between their patients, alcohol-fueled off-shifts, and an evolving health care system, Oleg and Katya have to find the binding force that will keep them together.

The Comeback Kid

A down-on his-luck baseball pitcher finds a new set of rewards coaching a gang of underprivileged youngsters and romancing a career-oriented playground supervisor who, against her better judgment, put the kids in his charge.