Resistance Fighters


Resistance Fighters – The Global Antibiotics Crisis is a documentary film by the German director :de:Michael Wech|Michael Wech and producer Leopold Hoesch. It was broadcast on Arte on March 12, 2019 and had its international festival premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival on March 24, 2019.

Content

The film deals with the phenomenon of antibiotic resistance spreading worldwide and the associated consequences for human cohabitation. The starting point of the documentary film is the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016 in New York, where the problem of the worldwide growing resistance to antibiotics was a central theme. In the course of the film, various experts in the field are brought up for discussion: Scientists, including Timothy Walsh of Cardiff University, one of the world's leading microbiologists on antibiotic resistance, who are looking for the causes of the spread of resistance and alternatives to antibiotics, politicians, such as the British economist and financial expert Jim O'Neill, appointed in 2014 by the then Prime Minister David Cameron as the British government's special envoy for antibiotic resistance, who want to draw public attention to the problem and also focus on the economic dimension of the increasing antibiotic resistance, as well as patients and their doctors who fight against infections with multi-resistant germs in hospitals. The use of antibiotics in animal feed plays a central role in the film. It also discusses the discovery of the first antibiotic penicillin by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming and the rise of antibiotics to become a globally used remedy. The film was shot in the United States, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Germany.

Production and distribution

The film is a co-production of Broadview Pictures and ZDF and was produced in cooperation with Arte. It was funded by the :de:Hessische Filmförderung|Hessische Filmförderung and the :de:Film- und Medienstiftung NRW|Film- und Medienstiftung NRW.
The film is distributed since February 2019 by the documentary film distributor Dogwoof.

Festivals and awards