The English Surgeon

"Enthralling, astonishing...agonizingly human." (Manohla Dargis, New York Times)

Winner of the Best Feature Documentary at both the 2008 Hotdocs and Silverdocs

‘THE ENGLISH SURGEON’

Mindbending true tale of one doctor’s quest to save lives in Ukraine.

Featuring original music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis!

The true-life tale of Henry Marsh, a London neurosurgeon who travels to Ukraine to treat desperate patients with no access to modern medical facilities, Geoffrey Smith’s THE ENGLISH SURGEON will open in Los Angeles on Friday, July 31 at the Laemmle Music Hall 3, located at 9036 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Featuring a doleful, evocative soundtrack by internationally acclaimed musicians Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, THE ENGLISH SURGEON is a tense medical thriller as well a meditation on mortality and the struggle to find meaning in life.

Henry Marsh is one of London’s foremost brain surgeons, a phlegmatic, philosophical man with no illusions about the nature of his work. “When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on people’s thoughts and feelings...and if something goes wrong I can destroy that person’s character…forever.”

On a trip to Kiev to give a lecture in 1992, Marsh was shocked to witness the plight of those with severe neurological problems there – a ghastly world of primitive clinics, Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and medieval surgery – and began making regular trips back to diagnose patients and perform operations whenever possible.

Award-winning filmmaker Geoffrey Smith followed Marsh on one of these trips in 2007, plunging into the chaos of the quest to see and save as many patients as possible. As the Ukrainian winter whirls around them, Marsh and his maverick Ukrainian counterpart, neurosurgeon Igor Kurilets, work around the clock to get through the endless lines of people who look upon Marsh as their last hope.

Offering the chance of life one minute and the sentence of death the next, the scenes of Marsh diagnosing these patients are intimate and intense. Marsh himself is terribly conflicted about how few he is able to help – and deeply remorseful when he recalls those who have died in the attempt. But Marian Dolishny, a poor, religious young man suffering from a brain tumor that will soon kill him, is one that Marsh believes he can save - providing he is awake throughout the entire operation. As the cameras roll, Dolishny undergoes a harrowing, unforgettable 15-minute procedure in the depths of the KGB hospital as Marsh wages his battle against certain death with a cordless Bosch power drill, sheer determination and gallows humor.

Winner of the Best Feature Documentary at both the 2008 Hotdocs and Silverdocs festivals as well as many other awards, THE ENGLISH SURGEON is heartfelt and often humorous documentary which speaks to the new spirit of service to others in our challenging times.


"Extraordinary…A life-affirming, unforgettable portrait of a true humanitarian.”- Time Out London

"Deeply touching, resonant and. …very funny"- Variety