Documentary on polio eradication receives Oscar nod

Documentary on polio eradication receives Oscar nod
Ryan Hyland
Rotary International News

In a week when Rotary International and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced millions more in funding toward polio eradication, a short documentary film, The Final Inch , received an Academy Award nomination on 22 January for its intimate look at the massive mission to rid the world of the crippling disease.

Nominated in the documentary short subject category, The Final Inch , a 38-minute film commissioned by the philanthropic division of Google, chronicles the challenges health organizations and governments face during the final stages of polio eradication.

Director and producer Irene Taylor Brodsky captured workers immunizing children in the poorest slums of India and Pakistan in 2007. In several scenes Rotarians were filmed working during a National Immunization Day on 22 April. Led by M.S. Jain, past governor of District 3100, NID volunteers administer polio vaccination drops to children in Meerut Samrat, Uttar Pradesh, India.

The Final Inch will air on HBO in early April.