A Story of Healing, featuring the work of plastic surgeons and nurses working on disfigured children and young adults in Vietnam, won the 1997 Academy Award® for best short-subject documentary. The doctors, anesthesiologists, and nurses of Interplast pay their own way and/or give up vacation time to travel to underdeveloped countries to perform reconstructive surgeries and train medical staff. Their reactions to the rustic hospital, the challenges of working with staff who speak a different language, and the situations of their patients are certainly interesting, but the power of this film lives in a boy named Nguyen Van Ket. A 16-year-old ostracized because of his cleft lip, he weeps gratefully throughout his surgery and recovery. Unlike the many younger children whose lips and palates these volunteers sew back together, this boy understands the impact of their stitches. To underline that point, this version features a five-minute coda after the credits of the original 28-minute short. In it a producer goes back to the Mekong delta 16 months later and finds Ket and a young woman who had a bulbous growth removed from her chin. The pair movingly confirm what viewers already know: the work of these volunteers changes lives. --Kimberly Heinrichs
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