Oscar-nominated filmmaker and journalist Poh Si Teng, whose career aspirations brought her to Columbus two decades ago, will return for a screening of her first documentary.
“American Doctor” unfolds over 93 minutes, tracking three physicians from the besieged, overwhelmed Gazan hospital where they volunteer to the U.S., where they share their testimonies with Congress and the media.
Part of the Unorthodocs Film Festival at the Wexner Center for the Arts, the documentary will be shown at 7 p.m. Oct. 24 in the film/video theater, following a 6 p.m. reception in the lower lobby.
Teng, who directed, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, one of the doctors in the film, will be present for a post-screening discussion.
Tickets cost $8 for Wex members, $12 general admission,
$9 for ages 55-older and $6 for students, available at wexarts.org/film-video/american-doctor.
“American Doctor,” which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in January, is nominated for two Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, including Teng in the Best First Documentary Feature category.
The film’s footage was transmitted under dangerous conditions. Instead of physically moving hard drives across borders, cinematographers smuggled out hours of footage digitally each day, often using the Signal messaging app.
Teng moved from her native Malaysia to study journalism at San Francisco State University. During her time there, she wrote for the student-run newspaper and interned at The Columbus Dispatch. She graduated from SFSU in 2007.
She produced the Academy Award-nominated “St. Louis Superman” and executive-produced the Emmy-winning “Patrice: The Movie.”
In addition to being a creative executive at ABC/Disney, Teng was a documentary commissioner for Al Jazeera English and a journalist for The New York Times.
Contact features and entertainment reporter Belinda M. Paschal at bpaschal@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Filmmaker Poh Si Teng to screen Gaza documentary at the Wex
