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Following Films Podcast: Chris Hartwell on DO NO HARM

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 Welcome back to the Following Films Podcast.

We’ve all spent time in the healthcare system, whether it’s sitting in a sterile waiting room or trying to navigate a bureaucratic nightmare for a loved one. It’s a system run by people who are constantly expected to be flawless, even when they’re completely running on empty. That brings us to today's film, Do No Harm.

The movie follows Sam Yeong, played by Harry Shum Jr., a home health nurse who is already burnt out to the point of collapse. In his exhaustion, he makes a single mistake, administering what might be a fatal dose of medication to a young patient. Instead of a clean medical drama where everything gets wrapped up with a nice moral lesson, the story spirals over 24 hours as Sam tries to cover his tracks while colliding head-on with the grieving father. It’s a tense, deeply uncomfortable look at moral injury, institutional pressure, and what happens when the people we expect to save us simply break under the weight. The cast also features Rosaline Elbay and Ronny Chieng, who bring a lot of weight to a situation where nobody comes out clean.

I sat down with writer and director Chris Hartwell to talk about how this whole project came together. Chris has deep family roots in the medical world: his dad is a doctor and his wife is a home health nurse, so he’s been listening to these ground-level stories for years. It took him nearly a decade to get this made, pulling together a low-budget, highly collaborative production that involved everyone from industry vets to his own film students. We talk about turning those real-life systemic pressures into a legit thriller, the nightmare of human error, and what it actually takes to drag an independent feature across the finish line these days.

Before we jump into the conversation, do me a quick favor: if you like what we’re doing here, take ten seconds to subscribe to the podcast, drop us a rating or review on whatever platform you're using, and share the episode with a friend who loves indie cinema. It really helps keep the lights on and gets these films in front of more people.

Here is my chat with Chris Hartwell.


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