Just What the Doctor Ordered: The Wellcome Trust presents 75 years of medicine on screen
2 September 2011
Just What the Doctor Ordered will explore the ethical dilemmas faced by doctors and the medical profession and how these have been presented on screen during the last 75 years, highlighting the Trust's extensive film archives and more recent film projects. The event runs over Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 September at Drays Walk Gallery, The Old Truman Brewery, London E1.
During the programme of talks and screenings Roger Graef will be joined by speakers including Stephen Cox, Head of Communications at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Geoffrey Smith, director of 'The English Surgeon'. The film selection will include 'The English Surgeon' (2007), 'Donor Unknown' (2010, Jerry Rothwell), Graef's award-winning 'One of Them is Brett' (1965), and excerpts from BBC2's Great Ormond Street series (2010), for which Graef was Executive Producer.
On Saturday 17 September, Graef will present a round-table discussion entitled 'The Ethics of Medicine On Screen'. The discussion will address the dilemmas faced by film-makers when representing medical issues in documentary film and drama, and how the medical profession views these efforts to represent their real-life dramas. Participants will include Stephen Cox, Head of Communications at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Foz Allan, former producer of BBC1's medical drama 'Casualty'.
On Sunday 18 September, there will be a double bill. For the first time in 50 years, Roger Graef's award-winning 'One of Them is Brett' will be publicly screened. Graef's first film, the documentary was made for the Society of Thalidomide Children and was absolutely groundbreaking in its treatment of the subject in its day. The film will be followed by a screening of 'Donor Unknown', a real-life story about children born through artificial insemination finding their sperm donor fathers.
As part of the Just What the Doctor Ordered experience, visitors will be invited to receive 'treatment' in the 'Therapy on Film' Hospital Ward, a recreation of a 1980s hospital waiting and treatment room, inspired by the Trust's collection of historical medical films. 'Patients' will be asked a series of questions about their health and prescribed a dose of therapy on film according to their diagnosis, which they will receive on a private screen in a hospital bed.
Angela Saward, Curator of Moving Image and Sound at the Wellcome Trust, said: "The UK has a tremendous legacy of documentary film making and the Wellcome Trust continues to nurture British talent through its broadcast grants. These days, television and film are very much the primary means of communicating science and medicine to the public, although historically this was certainly not the case.
"Just What the Doctor Ordered is a playful way to engage with some of the health messages of yesteryear; how our interest was engaged, what was felt to be best for us making us healthy and well. Wellcome Film, a digital online resource created by the Wellcome Trust, maps many of the changes in our well-being, some of them genuinely seismic, which have transformed the health of the nation over the last 75 years."
Roger Graef, documentary film-maker, said: "Public attitudes to health and medicine are constantly evolving, As a journalist and film-maker, my job is to document these changes, and to show the public what goes on behind the scenes of the medical profession amongst others. I am delighted to be part of this event to mark the Wellcome Trust's 75th anniversary and spread the word about their incredible film archive and the work they are doing to make the collection accessible to all."
The 'Therapy on Film' Hospital Ward is free and open daily, no booking required. Programmed events are free, but tickets must be booked by emailing boxoffice@medicineonscreen.com.
The full programme and booking details are available on the Just What the Doctor Ordered events page.
Roger Graef
Roger Graef OBE is an award-winning filmmaker, criminologist and writer. He is best known for his unstaged observational films in normally closed places like hospitals, board rooms, ministries, prisons, probation, family therapy, special schools and social work. His films have influenced policing and criminal justice policy. He was a founding board member of Channel 4 and a board member of the BFI, London Transport and the ICA. In 2004 he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement. In 2006 he was given an OBE. He is the Executive Producer of the highly-praised Great Ormond Street series on BBC2, and he is currently developing a major documentary series for Channel 4 with the support of the Wellcome Trust.
