The 1997 Academy Award®-winning documentary, “A Story of Healing,” has been re-released this week under a Creative Commons License, the first time in history that an acclaimed film is being widely distributed over the Internet for free with the message, “Please copy.” The nonprofit group that was the subject of the film recognized that by releasing the film under a relatively free license (strictly for non-commercial use, attribution required and no derivatives allowed) they would encourage people to spread the word about their inspiring charitable work. (And the fact that it’s here on the Good News Network proves they were right.)
A Story of Healing won an Oscar for best documentary short subject for its portrayal of a group of doctors and nurses working for Interplast, who traveled to the countryside of Viet Nam providing free reconstructive surgery for children with disfigured injuries of deformities.
Over the years Interplast has performed 64,000 life-changing surgeries for those who have no other access to care in poor countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. They transform lives and do it efficiently and with volunteers, allocating 90 percent of its budget to medical programs.
Here now, GNN presents the 28-minute, Dewey-Obenchain film, which is followed by a short epilogue (after the credits) which follows-up on two patients 16 months after their surgeries. From their Web site, Interplast.org, the group is offering, for a limited time, a DVD copy of “A Story of Healing” for a suggested donation of $10 or more. If you enjoy this film or feel compelled by Interplast’s work, then please donate so they can continue and expand their work, or subscribe to their blog feed.
In 1997, a film crew accompanied an Interplast volunteer surgical team to An Giang province in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The filmmakers donated their services to document the team’s experiences and produce A Story of Healing, which earned the 1997 Academy Award for best documentary short subject.
Ten years after its original release, A Story of Healing has been released under a Creative Commons license, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives (by-nc-nd), available for free online.
This is amazing. I will certainly pass it on.