The Country Doctor

The Country Doctor, Lorenza Mazzetti’s first film, thought lost for over 60 years, was rediscovered in 2019 and is remastered from the only known surviving element. The film was found in the Amos Vogel Archive at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during research for Brighid Lowe’s documentary Together with Lorenza Mazzetti. Based on a short story by Franz Kafka, The Country Doctor is a melancholically surreal film that follows an unexpected, urgent visit to a sickly patient whose wounds are found more on the inside than the outside and thus cannot be cured. A circular, ghostly melody instils a sense of a loneliness with both patient and doctor, both locked in their own personal, existential prisons.