Our Film Is At The Center Of A National Debate In Canada

“Tales From The Organ Trade” had its North American premiere this week at Hot Docs in Toronto, one of the most important documentary film festivals in the world. It’s now at the center of a Canadian national debate on organ transplants. The timing is impeccable. As of last week, it seems that some leading transplant associations are rethinking their policies, and now comes this film.

It all started when in 2005 I was helping my friend Baruch Tegegne (z”l) get a kidney. He was dying and a donor in India was willing to give him a kidney and even to fly to Canada for the operation. But the keepers of national ethics determined that since the man was Indian he must be poor, and if he’s poor he must be doing it for money, and if he’s doing it for money it would be better if Baruch died. We organized a press conference and managed to put the issue – briefly – back on the national agenda. We were willing to sue the hospital that refused to do the transplant and started an action. Suddenly, a matching donor was found for Baruch and the issue became moot.

But my friend Peter Feldman didn’t let the issue disappear. At his kitchen table, where some of our best talks take place, he suggested to me that I should produce a film on the organ trade. “People are dying,” he said, “it’s the person next door. You can’t let this issue disappear.” I pointed out to him the difficulties of making an “issue documentary”. We needed a new angle, I thought. The odds were against a film on the issue.

Peter didn’t let it go. He’s involved in the research side of medicine and he was in Jerusalem for a conference. He arranged a dinner meeting between two important people in the international transplant world and me. One of them in particular was adamant that no one should be allowed to sell a kidney under any condition. “It is immoral,” he said. “How can you be so sure of yourself?” I asked, “do you realize that by not regulating altruistic or for money kidney transplants you are condemning the donor to poverty and early death, and you are condemning the recipient to a long, agonizing death on dialysis.” He didn’t care. Morality is morality, as far as he was concerned and this issue was an open and shut moral case. It was at that point that I realized that Peter was right. A film had to be made.

Parallel with all this, when my long time associate Ric Esther Bienstock was in Turkey to film our Emmy winning documentary “Sex Slaves” about sex trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union, she was struck by a statement by the main character of the film. He was a man whose wife had been kidnapped in the Ukraine and sold into the sex market of Turkey. He was posing as a pimp to buy her back. “I would even sell my kidney,” he said, “if that would get her back.” The statement seemed odd and out of context to Ric – but it resonated. So when I brought up the issue of a film to her, she was immediately enthused.

Everyone agreed, however, that we needed a new storytelling angle. The only thing that had not been done, really, from a journalistic point of view, was find every member of an illegal transplant i.e., recipient, donor, middle man, surgeon etc. The odds seemed against it. How do you infiltrate a transplant like that? It’s in nobody’s interest to let you into the inner circle.

I knew from the beginning that Ric was the only one who could pull it off. Of course, she needed the help of our other long time associate, producer Felix Golubev. Felix is one of those mission impossible types who comes up with the goods in the most improbable of places. For her part, Ric has the insight, the perseverance, the filmmaker’s eye and the chops of an investigative journalist. These characteristics in a single person are very rare. So off we went. With the help of Shaw Media in Canada, HBO in the US, and the Rogers Telefund we got the funding we needed and the production was a go.

It’s been 7 years since the original idea. 5 years in the making and now, finally, the dream became a reality. “Tales From The Organ Trade” is being hailed as a nuanced piece of filmmaking. The first film to find everyone involved in one illegal transplant. The first film to lay out the issue of the buying and selling of organs in all its complexity and the various shades of ethical grays. Ric is being hailed for her directorial triumph. The reviews are coming in and the timing couldn’t be better. It’s now part of a national debate about the future of organ transplant. Maybe it’ll succeed to influence Canada’s policies and maybe Canada’s new policies will create an international precedent. No one should die from kidney failure when solutions are at hand. I’m delighted that the film has begun winning awards, but if it saves one life by accelerating the organ transplant policies of nations, this will be a far greater reward for everyone involved in the making of this extraordinary documentary. The needless dying has to stop.

See:
1. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/05/01/jesse-kline-on-selling-organs/
2. http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/24/whats-hot-at-hot-docs-4/#more-376405
3. http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2013/04/29/tales-from-the-organ-trade-ric-esther-bienstock/
4. http://www.talesfromtheorgantrade.com/