Filmmakers look at health care in small towns

By TOM LAVENTURE

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Bessemer - A barber shop is often considered a centerpiece in the community conversation and a documentary film crew selected Misky's Haircuts in Bessemer to interview area residents on the topic of healthcare on Saturday. 

Filmmaker Christine Ryan Harland and her cinematographer James Q. Martin, of C'est Tout Films, based in Tuscon, Arizona, are traveling the country with University of Arizona physicians to record feedback from people in small towns about health care and the challenges in life.

The film is a follow-up to a physicians' bicycle tour during the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. The doctors talked about health care with people of small towns and decided to broaden the tour in 2020.

"We thought it would be great to develop a film around that and around those conversations, but we want to go more in depth and find folks in the towns to get a better understanding about how people really feel about health care," Ryan Harland said. 

Initially funded by the University of Arizona the COVID-19 shutdown put a halt to the documentary and the funding, she said. The film company was able to privately fund the film to continue the tour as she negotiates with PBS and other networks for the film along with more fundraising. 

"We studied about how to film safely in this environment," Ryan Harland said.  

Lou Miskovich, who said he was just allowed to open his barber shop again a week earlier, said that as a barber he was able to help arrange interview subjects for the filmmakers. He was also interviewed as someone who falls between the cracks in the system with some help from the Veterans Administration but unable to afford insurance as a small business owner.

Coming to the Upper Peninsula was in part because of the low number of COVID-19 cases, Ryan Harland said. The film crew knew they could be relatively safe here and tested themselves to ensure that they in turn would not infect anyone.

The interviews across the U.P. were unique in representing many voices on all sides of the spectrum, Ryan Harland said. The complexities that were talked about in the interviews show there are people who are passionate about the environmental issues here along with people who share a conservative viewpoint but also share some concerns of the left.

"So, we've met a lot of Trump supporters along the way who are adamant; but they also believe that health care is a human right," Ryan Harland said. "So it's fascinating because they straddle these kinds of political lines."

In other areas of the country the people who embrace right or left tend to stick to their respective party lines on any given issue, she said. That isn't the case here.

"There is a much deeper complexity in the U.P.," Ryan Harland said.

Born in New York City, Ryan Harland has lived all over the country, including a small town in Utah. She also lived for a time in a small village in the south of France.

"I love small towns," she said. "I think I must have a vision for myself at some point to land in a place like Bessemer."

Ryan Harland was in the documentary program of Duke University when she took part in the "Anytown, USA" series. The filmmakers went into small towns and developed stories for people who don't necessarily get much of a voice. 

"So I'm not necessarily new to that experience," she said. "I guess I really like it because I keep coming back to it."

It helps a lot to understand a country when you visit these places, she said. The margin of opinion presented in the network or on cable news reflects a small portion of the country.

The filmmakers will follow the physicians to an event in Duluth and head back to Arizona around June 30. The physicians will continue on to Seattle including a segment by train.

With the small town interviews conducted the filmmakers will now concentrate on healthcare experts. The film will offer a cohesive understanding about the U.S. healthcare industry from the various stakeholders in the system.

"We want to make those ideas more palatable," she said.

For more information on the filmmakers visit cesttoutfilms.com.