As part of my ongoing collaboration with Reel Peak Films, Keeping the Lights On is a documentary short film that examines the COVID-19 pandemic from inside Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, one of New York State’s most underfunded hospitals. Serving largely communities of color in Brooklyn and Queens, Wyckoff faced the pandemic with limited resources while standing at the epicenter of one of the most severe outbreaks in a century.
The film offers an intimate and unfiltered portrait of a hospital on the brink, told through the lives of the doctors, nurses, staff and workers who kept the institution functioning during the height of the crisis. Rather than focusing on statistics or external narratives, Keeping the Lights On captures the human dimension of the pandemic—fatigue, resilience, fear and commitment—observed from within an ill-equipped system pushed to its limits.
Reel Peak Films is an Emmy Award–winning production company known for documentary films and series that combine journalistic rigor with cinematic storytelling. Founded by Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau, the company produces and directs projects for digital platforms, television and theatrical release.
Reel Peak Films has created content for major media organizations including Netflix, TIME, CNN, National Geographic and The New Yorker. Their films have screened at leading international festivals such as Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, among many others worldwide.
Following the Netflix documentary series Unnatural Selection, Reel Peak Films directed and produced Immigration Nation, a six-part documentary series released on Netflix in 2020. Keeping the Lights On continues this body of work, reflecting the company’s commitment to documenting complex social realities with depth, integrity and empathy.
