Crystal Kayiza’s Bloodlines, Mississippi is a 22-minute documentary that should not be confined to a single distributor

 

Mini Review: 

'BLOODLINES, MISSISSIPPI'

Crystal Kayiza’s Bloodlines, Mississippi is a 22-minute documentary that should not be confined to a single distributor. It belongs everywhere people get their information: festivals, public broadcasters, digital platforms, medical institutions, journalism outlets, and community spaces. The crisis it exposes demands national reach. Black and Brown Americans are losing their limbs at an alarming rate, and while many people nod in recognition, the country has not truly reckoned with why. For too many families in the Mississippi Delta, losing a foot or a leg feels like an inherited fate. It is not. It is preventable.

Kayiza brings a disciplined, observational eye to this story. A Guggenheim Fellow and a standout alumna of the Sundance Ignite Fellowship, she has built a career spotlighting overlooked lives with clarity and emotional depth. Produced by Nobel Prize Outreach and Orlando von Einsiedel’s Grain Media—the team behind an Academy Award® win—Bloodlines, Mississippi arrives with the full force of filmmakers who understand how to use cinema to shift public conversation.

At the center of the film is Dr. Foluso Fakorede, a Nigerian-American cardiologist whose work in the Mississippi Delta has become a national model for confronting the amputation epidemic. Since relocating to the region in 2015, he has pushed for earlier diagnosis of peripheral artery disease (PAD), fought for equitable access to care, and helped drive an 88% drop in unnecessary amputations. His advocacy extends from exam rooms to Congress, where he helped launch the first Congressional PAD Caucus and contributed to legislation addressing this crisis. Kayiza captures him not as a lone hero but as a physician battling a system that repeatedly fails the communities that need it most.

Bloodlines, Mississippi screens at DOC NYC on November 17 at the IFC Center, and again on November 19 in “Home of the Brave”—the festival’s inaugural collaboration with Creatively Speaking at the New School’s Institute on Race, Power & Political Economy. The placement underscores the film’s urgency. PAD is striking younger and younger patients, and the disparities it exposes cut directly into America’s racial, economic, and geographic fault lines.

Kayiza’s film sits at the intersection of cinema, culture, and community. In just 22 minutes, it delivers clarity, emotional weight, and a call to action: limb loss should not be an American legacy. This documentary deserves multiple distribution platforms—not later, but now.