An award-winning documentary that goes one step better than Michael Moore’s Sicko in a positive, persuasive portrait of Cuba’s health-care system will be screened in a free, public program of the SLC Film Center’s Spanish Language Film Series Monday, Sept. 22, at 7 p.m. in the City Library Auditorium.

¡Salud!, made in 2006 by Connie Field, not only shows how Cuba built its widely-cited health care program – where family doctors make house calls – but it also explores how the program sets an example for other developing countries such as Gambia and Honduras.

Following the 93-minute film, a panel will take questions from the audience. Panelists include Canidi Ramos, director of diversity and community outreach at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine; Juliana Santos Simonetti, a fourth-year medical student, and Martha Mandujano, certified physician assistant at the Oquirrh View Health Center.

The documentary is a strong endorsement for Cuban doctors well known for their empathy in working with poor communities and destitute rural patients. Less a story of political tension and more a portrait of empowering humanitarianism, the film does include some attention-getting infighting between the Cuban doctors and the native medical professions of some of the countries they visit, including South Africa and Venezuela.

The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. ¡Salud! has won several major awards including the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media, conferred by the U.S.-based Council on Foundations. It also recently won best documentary awarded by the American Medical Students as well as the audience award at the 2007 Pan African Film Festival. It has been recognized by the American Library Association and Houston’s 40th Annual WorldFest.

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