“We’ve moved away from calling it a treatment center, because little treatment is available,” says Dr. Javid Abdelmoniem, one of the unsung heroes of the 2014 West African Ebola pandemic who is spotlighted in tonight’s HBO documentary short Ebola: The Doctors’ Story.
The film is part of the network’s trilogy of short films offering an multi-perspective examination of the outbreak that devastated Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — and terrified the world — which premieres tonight at 9/8CT.
Ebola: The Doctors’ Story, Body Team 12 (a 2016 Oscar nominee) and Orphans of Ebola chronicle the devastating health crisis over an 8-month timeframe, telling the stories of the doctors, response teams and local aid workers, and children left orphaned by the disease.
Here are the films’ descriptions from HBO.
• EBOLA: THE DOCTORS’ STORY from Steven Grandison, joins Dr. Abdelmoneim, a British emergency response doctor, inside a Doctors Without Borders Ebola treatment center in Kalilahun, Sierra Leone as the epidemic escalates dramatically in fall 2014.
Attached to the doctors’ goggles, cameras designed to enter the “hot zone” of the facility reveal for the first time the realities of battling an unprecedented outbreak. Dr. Abdelmoneim, along with local and international colleagues, fights for the survival of his patients, and helps families reunite or cope with overwhelming loss.
• BODY TEAM 12 highlights the heroic and heartbreaking work of Garmai Sumo, a female Liberian Red Cross worker tasked with collecting the dead from homes and villages, and removing the bodies to halt transmission of the disease. In a tightrope act of high-risk filmmaking, director/journalist David Darg (Baseball in the Time of Cholera) embedded with the Red Cross on the ground in Monrovia, Liberia, during the height of the outbreak.
Darg’s poignant images recount the Ebola crisis through the story of Sumo, the sole female member of the body collection team, who reflects on the cultural and social upheavals caused by the disease, as well as her resolve to fight for her country’s future.
Edited by Darg while he was in full quarantine for three weeks, the film was executive produced by philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen as part of his commitment to combat the Ebola crisis in West Africa and co-executive produced by actress Olivia Wilde (HBO’s Vinyl).
“The bravery of these young Liberians was an astounding phenomenon to witness, as they risked their lives every day to save the lives of others, and to save their country from Ebola. Body Team 12 is a tribute to those heroes, and it is our hope that a presentation on HBO will honor these body teams and lead to greater exposure of their determination and tireless efforts.”
• ORPHANS OF EBOLA from Ben Steele (Hunted: The War Against Gays in Russia) follows Abu, a 12-year-old boy from a Sierra Leone village, who loses eight members of his family and must restart his life elsewhere.
Filmed over a period of four months, beginning just after the height of the epidemic in Dec. 2014 through the reopening of the country’s schools in April 2015, Abu’s story illustrates the incredible bravery of the thousands of children who have been orphaned by Ebola as they reconcile with the past and forge new lives.
Ebola: The Doctors’ Story, Body Team 12 (a 2016 Oscar nominee) and Orphans of Ebola premiere Monday, March 14 beginning at 9/8CT on HBO. All three films also air on HBO March 14 (2:50am), March 17 (4pm., 11pm), March 21 (10:15 a.m.) and March 22 (12:10 p.m.)
Body Team 12 and Ebola: The Doctors’ Story encore March 19 at 3:15pm
All 3 films will air on HBO 2 March 16 at 8pm and March 30 at 2:30pm and 12:15pm.
Orphans of Ebola encores March 27 at 9:25am on HBO.
The documentaries will also be available on HBO NOW, HBO GO and HBO On Demand.
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