The New Yorker Acquires ‘Rovina’s Choice,’ Documentary On “Gut-Punch Reality” Of Pres. Trump’s Decision To Kill Life-Saving Foreign Aid

EXCLUSIVE: The New Yorker has acquired Rovina’s Choice — a short documentary about the real-world impact of Pres. Trump’s decision to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – setting up the film for a robust Oscar campaign.

The 22-minute documentary, directed by investigative journalists Thomas Jennings and Annie Wong, premieres today on the newyorker.com website. Executive producers are Dr. Atul Gawande, the noted author, surgeon and New Yorker writer who served in the Biden administration as former assistant administrator for Global Health at USAID, and Emmy-Award winner Simon Kilmurry.

The documentary was filmed at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.

“Rovina’s Choice tells the story of one woman trying to save her daughter from starvation, tracing the effects of a U.S. executive order halting foreign aid,” notes a synopsis. “Rovina Naboi’s experience shows how that decision altered lives of vulnerable people and interrupted progress in the global fight against hunger and contagious disease.”

The film’s website adds, “Rovina’s story is singular, yet it echoes thousands of others. Her experience reveals how policy decisions made an ocean away can determine who eats, who survives, and whose stories reach the world.”

Paul Moakley, executive producer of video at The New Yorker, said in a statement, “This film clearly illustrates, through the deeply humanist lens of Annie Wong and Tom Jennings, the dire and tragic effects of recent policy decisions to cut foreign aid on one woman’s life.”

Jennings commented, “New Yorker documentaries are renowned for turning complicated issues into powerful journalism. The gut-punch reality of Rovina’s Choice is perfectly at home there.”

Kilmurry, a governor of the Academy’s documentary branch, currently serves as vice president-treasurer of A.M.P.A.S. “The consequences of cutting off foreign assistance can feel abstract,” Kilmurry said, “but Rovina’s story reveals the deeply distressing impact that such a policy choice is having on the most vulnerable people. It’s a story that we urgently need to bear witness to.”

Rovina’s Choice is directed by Thomas Jennings and Annie Wong and edited by Flávia De Souza. The film is produced by Yiel Awat and Marcia Robiou and executive produced by Atul Gawande and Simon Kilmurry. Director of photography is Joan Poggio; Griffin Jennings composed the score.

“For more than two decades,” the Rovina’s Choice website points out, “international partnerships steadily improved survival rates for children suffering from acute malnutrition. In some regions, the rate of recovery had climbed above 90%. Those gains represented one of global health’s quiet success stories. But the sudden withdrawal of U.S. funding reversed years of progress almost overnight, forcing clinics to shut down and leaving humanitarian teams to face a growing crisis with fewer resources and mounting loss.”