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ANCHOR:
One of the films being shown at the Venice Film Festival is a documentary on aid workers in war zones. It's focused on the tough choices and dilemmas faced by doctors in extreme conditions. Here's more.

STORY:
Shot in 2005-2006 and presented at the Venice Film Festival, "Living in Emergency" follows four Western volunteers working in Africa for Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The four struggle to cope under the load of cases, lack of adequate supplies, chaos and carnage around them. Using some graphic footage of emergency surgery and frank interviews with id workers, the documentary gives a powerful sense of what life in the field is like for MSF doctors.

[Mark Hopkins, Director]:
"They are doing quite extraordinary stuff in crazy situations but...it would be disingenuous to the actual reality of the situation to turn it into one of those standard clichés."

The documentary shows the material constraints affecting the volunteers' work -- choosing which patient to treat first means deciding who will live and who will die. It also explores how their ideals, perspectives and motives are transformed over time by what they witness in the field.

[Volunteer]:
"This is low-grade medicine. The things that we do are not as good as they could be."

Chris Brasher, an Australian anaesthetist who worked with MSF for nine years and is one of the doctors at the centre of the documentary, has left the agency for a Paris hospital.

[Chris Brasher, MSF Doctor]:
"I was completely burnt out .... dreaming about burned bodies and dying people. I had trouble in my personal life maintaining my relationships, I was becoming aggressive."

While most describe their work as a highly enriching experience, the stress and the exposure to the horrors of war can take a heavy toll.

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