The Country Doctor
Independant Feature FIlm |Surreal Drama / Dark Comedy | Currently in Production with 70% principal filmed.
Amr El-Bayoumi as The Doctor
SYNOPSIS
When a reserved Turkish-American doctor reluctantly accepts a medical intern, he is called to the remote town of Thayer, Kansas, where patients exhibit bizarre, impossible symptoms. As he investigates an unsettling illness afflicting the town's residents—including a mysterious widow—the doctor's carefully controlled life unravels into a surreal battle between reality and madness.
CAST
Amr El-Bayoumi
(House of Cards, Mr. Robot, Dear Edward), an Egyptian-born, Midwestern–raised actor based in Washington, DC with credits across the U.S., England, and Egypt. A former engineer and attorney, he brings grounded authority to Dr. Yilmaz.
Priya Pappu
(Dust to Light, Me Against the World), a first-generation Indian-Finnish actor, plays Mahika—a determined med student whose curiosity and empathy pierce the doctor’s guarded solitude.
Roxanne Hart
(Highlander, Chicago Hope, Ozark) brings decades of stage and screen experience to The Country Doctor, portraying the Widow as a suffocating maternal figure whose fragility haunts the doctor.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
This story comes from my deep love of biopic epics combined with the subtle, indescribable sublime contained in the short stories of Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka and Joseph Conrad. From that interest grew the framework for this film: a series of bizarre patient cases set just past the edge of reality, and the good doctor who guides us there.
As a legally blind filmmaker with no fovea—only peripheral vision—I experience the world in a perpetual widescreen with a slight, inbuilt distance. This perspective shapes the movie; it’s an approach I first recognized in Lawrence of Arabia, shot by Freddie Young and directed by David Lean. When the environment dwarfs the individual, we witness the story rather than ride shotgun. From this vantage, events unspool with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, and the result is a quietly devastating experience you can’t shake. My aim is to translate this way of seeing into the film’s language: spare compositions, patient cuts, and a humility before the frame that keeps the world larger than the characters.
Much of my reverence for the environment comes from growing up in Kansas. I carry with me a love for the Midwestern sky and its vastness, and the kindness and work ethic of the region. In fact, the doctor himself is inspired by a local element: my colleague’s Turkish grandfather, who worked as a field doctor in Leavenworth, Kansas in the 1960s and 70s. Despite the distance from the resources of the coast, the story lives on-location with a small band of incredibly talented crew and actors. With their support, I set out to make a film that punches above its weight and brings a larger-than-life place and story to viewers.