In Mexico City’s wealthiest neighborhoods, the Ochoa family runs a private ambulance, competing withother for-profit EMTs for patients in need of urgent help. As they try to make a living in this cutthroat industry, the Ochoas struggle to keep their financial needs from compromising the people in their care.
The Ochoa family runs a for-profit ambulance in Mexico City, competing with other EMTs for patients in need of urgent help. While making a living in this cutthroat industry, they struggle to keep their financial needs from jeopardizing the people in their care. When a crackdown by corrupt police forces the family to try legitimizing their operation, their desperate financial situation pushes them into questionable practices even as they continue providing essential emergency medical services. In humanizing the Ochoas’ ethically compromised business, Midnight Familyexplores urgent questions around healthcare, the failings of government and the complexity of personal responsibility.
Born in 1993, Luke Lorentzen is a recent graduate from Stanford University's department of Art and Art History, where he studied Art History and Film Studies. His film, Santa Cruz del Islote (2014) –a short documentary about a small and densely populatedfishing community in Colombia –has won awards at over ten international film festivals including the San Francisco International, Full Frame Documentary, Camden International, and Chicago International. His first feature documentary, New York Cuts (2015), explores six hair salons in disparate cultural enclaves of New York City. The film had its world premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam and its US Premiere at the Camden International Film Festival. Luke is also part of the creativeteam behind the Netflix documentary series, Last Chance U (seasons one through four). His work explores elements of everyday life, often through rigorous formal means, questioning and experimenting with the ways in which non-fiction stories are told. Originally from Connecticut, Luke now lives on the road, most recently working on projects in Kansas, Mexico City and Italy.
