In Curt Samlaska’s short film Forgiving Retribution, Dr. Brona (Ken Allan Phillips) is a physician now struggling with guilt over a fatal misdiagnosis. Years earlier, a teenager, Ben (Edward Bachir Karam), saw Dr. Brona with serious chest pains. He dismissed it as a panic attack, but it turned out to be complications from a vaccine.
Now Dr. Brona is in need of care himself. When he learns he has malignant melanoma, he refuses treatment, seeing his condition as divine punishment—a retribution for Ben’s death. Brona insists that he does not deserve to be saved. As he isolates himself, Brona begins seeing Ben’s ghost, who forces him to confront the weight of his guilt and question whether forgiveness is even possible. During this descent, he encounters Arthur (John Queeley), a young man inexplicably drawn to find him in Las Vegas.
“Dr. Brona is a physician now struggling with guilt over a fatal misdiagnosis.”
Writer-director Samlaska, himself a physician, drew inspiration for Forgiving Retribution from the real-life emotional toll doctors experience when they lose patients. He cites the staggering number of physician suicides each year as part of his motivation to explore the themes of remorse, self-punishment, and redemption. Through Dr. Brona’s struggle, Samlaska channels the internal conflict of those who see their own suffering as retribution, feel unworthy of forgiveness, yet still long for grace.
As a film, Forgiving Retribution is a straightforward drama. Though it feels a bit melodramatic at times and doesn’t play around with twists and turns, the heart of the film is in its messaging. We hear it all the time: we live in a divided world, and it appears that the only thing that can save it is forgiveness and grace.
"…the heart of the film is in its messaging."
