One of Many—Dr. Nhan
1983 · 16m · Canada
Directed by Jan-Marie Martell
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
Dr. Nhan, an ethnic Chinese refugee from Vietnam who practiced acupuncture in Saigon for many years, fights British Columbia rules that refuse to recognize her profession so she can practice in Canada.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone wants to celebrate the immigrant triumph narrative, but Martell's actually interested in something weirder—the bureaucratic violence of professional erasure, the way systems don't just reject people, they reject entire ways of knowing. It's a doc that refuses the easy uplift.
A precisely composed portrait of credentialing as cultural gatekeeping, shot with the formal restraint of 80s NFB documentary practice; Martell situates Dr. Nhan's struggle within a lineage of institutional critique that feels both historically specific and structurally rigorous.
The decision to let Dr. Nhan's hands move through space—performing the acupuncture muscle memory she's forbidden to use professionally—transforms what could be a policy argument into something visceral and singular, a body remembering what the state won't let her do.