‘These Indian doctors are the real heroes’

Indian origin Hollywood film producer shoots Covid-19 documentary

Team L&M

As film shoots are about to resume, an Indian filmmaker in Hollywood, Sweta Rai has shot a feature-length documentary film, A Pandemic: Away from the Motherland, under lockdown, all from her apartment in Downtown, Los Angeles.

“This starts a new era of filmmaking or the “new normal” as they say. This lockdown has been difficult for everyone as the world came to a halt. Being alone at home, I decided to make the best use of this time,” says Sweta. As Covid-19 cases increase, in India and worldwide, healthcare workers are facing there are different problems. Among these is a section of Indian doctors who are working abroad, away from their Motherland. 

“As these frontline workers were dealing with the crisis, I wanted to bring the story of these five Indian doctors in USA who are away from their families. This pandemic has left everyone questioned, and these frontline workers are the real heroes. Their story needed to be told. When someone lives away from the family, their challenges are different; their emotions are different. But what I learned is that while their families back in India miss them every day, they feel proud of them for protecting the human race regardless of what country they are in,” she adds.

The story features Dr Ankit Bharat who has just performed USA’s first double lung transplant surgery on a Covid-19 patient. He is known worldwide for this and his previous achievements with Robotic lung surgeries for which he was featured at Times Square, New York. Apart from Dr. Bharat, this story features 4 other Indian doctors and their families. Nephrologist Dr Pooja Malhotra who contracted Covid-19, recovered, and got back to work; Dr Uma Madhusudana (Internal Medicine), Dr Shreedhar Kulkarni (Internal Medicine), and Dr Shantanu Singh (Critical Care & Pulmonary Diseases) who are treating Covid-19 patients.