TRIAGE: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma

Dir. Patrick Reed | Canada | 88 min. | 2008

The act of triage is the ultimate humanitarian nightmare. Racing against time with limited resources, relief workers make split-second decisions: who gets treatment; who gets food; who lives; who dies.

This impossible dilemma understandably haunts humanitarians like Dr. James Orbinski, who accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as their President, and was a field doctor during the Somali famine, the Rwandan genocide, among other catastrophes.

Having seen the best and worst of humanitarian assistance and of humanity itself, Orbinski embarks on his most difficult mission to date - writing a deeply personal and controversial book that struggles to make sense of it all.

Filmed in an intense vérité style, Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma presents a unique view of the world through the penetrating eyes of Orbinski. He refuses to turn away when confronting troubling memories or realizing disturbing truths and, in the most unlikely of places, he finds where bonds of solidarity are forged, and human spirits somehow remain unbroken.

Orbinski - a father, a doctor, a humanitarian - has seen lives saved and lives lost and has personally witnessed a world gone astray. In Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma, he searches for a new path and invites the viewer to follow.

Triage: Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma is an 88-minute feature film by the creative team behind the award-winning documentary Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire.

View the Trailer