Out Of The Darkness - A documentary by Stefano Levi

23 February 2011

An award winning documentary featuring Fred Hollows' great friend and dedicated humanitarian, Dr Sanduk Ruit of Nepal, has its world premiere at the Documentary Edge Film festival in Auckland and Wellington this March.

The inspiring documentary follows Dr Ruit, his American colleague Dr Geoff Tabin and their team as they trek to remote villages carrying an entire hospital on porters’ backs to provide low-cost procedures to restore eyesight.

Director Stefano Levi accompanies the men as they humbly go about bringing hope and light to those who don’t have any in the most difficult of conditions.

Fred Hollows and Dr Ruit met in the mid-1980s and he later came to Australia for a year to train and live with Fred. He was both Fred’s protégé and friend and the two friends were driven to overcome the obstacles of providing high quality eye care to people in Nepal.

In 1988, the Nepal Eye Program Australia (NEPA) was set-up by Dr Ruit, Fred and Gabi Hollows and other friends and colleagues to support Nepal’s Prevention of Blindness Program. This led to the building of a laboratory in Kathmandu that would produce low cost intraocular lenses for use in modern cataract surgery.

In 1994, just a year after Fred died, Tilganga Eye Centre led by Dr Ruit as the medical director was opened. Today it is considered a leading Centre of Excellence, and is internationally renowned for its results in treating avoidable blindness throughout Nepal and in other developing countries.

The Auckland premiere on Saturday 26th February, 6.15 pm, at the Event cinema in Newmarket will feature a ‘question and answer’ session with the documentary director Stefano Levi and Fred Hollows Foundation NZ CEO, Brent Impey.

Additional screenings will be held on the same day as 12.15pm as well as March 4 at 5.30pm in Auckland. Wellington screenings begin on March 10 at City Gallery Wellington 2pm) and then at the Angelika Reading Cinemas Courtenay on March 19 (12.15pm and March 25 (5:30pm)

Out of the Darkness has been selected to be screened at the ECU - European Independent Film Festival. Among the 78 independent Films selected from all over Europe, only 6 Documentaries were chosen.

www.hollows.org.nz

ENDS

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