What matters most in life—and why it matters—is the subject of “Medic 3,” a stirring new documentary by Torrey Schoerner and Priscilla Cordoba.


Set to world-premiere at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, the documentary uses three distinct visual styles to convey the world of Mammoth Mountain paramedics. Faced with life-and-death situations nearly daily, the subjects of this 10-minute film have formed a world view very different from that of most of us. . .and yet it is one that has much to say to those of us in the “non-emergency” world.

“Medic 3,” a tribute to life-saving paramedics on Mammoth Mountain, will world-premiere at the Beverly Hills Film Festival on May 8, 2004 at the Clarity Theatre, 100 N. Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, at noon.

The subject comes naturally for directors Priscilla Cordoba, whose father is an emergency room physician, and Torrey Schoerner, the son of a Mammoth rescue firefighter. But while the subject was a natural one, what the filmmakers discovered was anything but self-evident.

“We had preconceived notions about the attitudes of the people we documented,” Cordoba noted. “You might think that they would either be quite cynical or hopelessly optimistic, but the truth actually lies somewhere in between.”

“What became immediately clear,” Schoerner said, “is that emergency workers have an entirely different take on life from the rest of us. Their perspective centers much more on the present, whereas many of us are fixated on the future or past, depending on our situation and attitude at any given time.”
The work of these heroes, inspired by the directors’ fathers, is memorialized in a precise, unyielding way in “Medic 3.” Interestingly, the filmmakers used three distinct visual styles and tones in this short film:

a super-8, quick-cut realist style in the early ridealong scenes sepia tones to represent the fire department and blue to identify the interview segments
a slowed-motion montage feel for the closing scenes.
“The unique styles reflect the different moods of the film, as well as serve to identify its three fairly distinct parts,” Cordoba said.



Medic 3 is a moving testament to the life-saving efforts of its subjects, and is a film determined not to leave its viewers unchanged. “Our daily struggles become commonplace and unimportant by comparison,” Schoerner said. “Accepting the inevitable, dealing with it, and moving on in life is, I think, the credo these rescue worker share,” Cordoba shared, “and it’s not a bad lesson for any of us to learn.”