Fighting Disease

Important medical discoveries have implications for all of humanity, far beyond the time and context in which they were made. Around the world, scientists and healthcare professionals continue to build on the foundations laid by Nobel Prize laureates.

In the exhibition Fighting Disease – Three Stories From the Fields of Medicine, we meet a scientist, a doctor and a nurse who continue the journey from scientific discovery to better health for the world’s population. They work to prevent disease, administer vaccines and search for new antibiotics.

The three documentary films take us to different corners of the world. In Shadows in Sunlight, directed by Ruhi Hamid, Ishrat Rahim vaccinates children against polio in Pakistan. Facing deep suspicion, she carries out her work under daily armed protection. In the film Life Invisible, directed by Bettina Perut och Iván Osnovikoff, we travel to the the Atacama Desert of Chile, where researcher Cristina Dorador is searching for new treatments to fight infectious diseases. And in Mississippi, we follow Dr Foluso Fakorede in his work with diabetes patients in the southern United States. The film Bloodlines, Mississippi is directed by Crystal Kayiza.

The exhibition features short versions of the three documentaries, accompanied by artefacts collected on site during filming. It also highlights Nobel Prize-awarded discoveries such as insulin, the polio vaccine, and penicillin.

The directors

Director of Shadows in Sunlight Ruhi Hamid, is a British filmmaker, born in Tanzania, who has made award-winning documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera International and other UK, US and European broadcasters. She makes well regarded films including Women and Islam (2004), The Rockstar and the Mullahs (2003), and Women, Weddings, War and Me (2010).

The film Life Invisible was directed by Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff. Bettina Perut is a Chilean journalist, film director, producer and screenwriter who has collaborated with director Iván Osnovikoff since 1997. Perut and Osnovikoff have directed and produced documentaries such as Un Hombre Aparte, Welcome to New York, Noticias and Surire.

Brooklyn-based filmmaker Crystal Kayiza is the director of Bloodlines, Mississippi. She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film”. Her most recent film, Rest Stop, was awarded the Jury Prize for Best US Short Film at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.