OUT OF THE SHADOWS

There are some countries where basic health care is a luxury item, where people with operable deformities, from birth or accidents, are confined to the shadows of life because they can't afford surgery. The film shows how a group of caring medical volunteers from Australia have made a real difference. During the past 17 years, Interplast Australia has helped more than 10,000 people in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. In this challenging and moving documentary, we follow the plastic surgeons, anaesthetists and nurses on two trips to the Philippines over a 12-month period. We meet their patients, like 21-year-old Joseph Giron, who was so tired of living with his facial deformity that he tried to end it all. And 20-year-old Zemma, with a cleft lip and cleft palate, who was so embarrassed about her appearance and speech that she quit her studies. Now they smile and feel life has promise. It is an experience that will make you marvel at the courage of the patients and the goodwill of the medical personnel who crossed the world to help them.