Coming to PBS’s America Reframed series tonight, Tuesday, April 28: PERFECT STRANGERS
Jan Krawitz’s made its bow at the San Francisco DocFest in 2013. Other festival screenings have included Big Sky, Sebastopol Doc, Southern Circuit, Thin Line, Hot Springs, United Nations Association, and Heartland.
After Ellie, a free-spirited massage therapist, meets a young woman in need of a kidney transplant, she becomes motivated to learn more about the process, and writes a research paper for her community college class about the dire need for kidney donations in the country. Inspired, she joins a program called Matching Donors, and offers to donate one of her kidneys to someone in need – a rare act as a stranger, as the majority of transplants are from either deceased donors or family members. When Ellie finds herself paired with Kathy, a woman on dialysis who is desperate for a new kidney, she is certain that her donation will save her, only to face devastating news. More than a simple advocacy film alerting viewers to the need for organ donors, Krawitz explores larger issues around compassion and altruism. While the film is fairly pedestrian on a technical level, it benefits enormously from its captivating characters.
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