Half Man Half Tree
32 year old Dede lives in a remote village in Indonesia with his two children, trying to care for them. Dede, a former fisherman, has an extraordinary skin condition: he has root like structures growing out of his body - branches that can grow up to 5cm a year and which protrude from his hands and feet, and welts covering his whole body.
He is known locally as ‘Tree Man’ and his condition has baffled local doctors for 20 years. In an attempt to earn a living to support his family, he is part of a circus troupe, displaying his Tree Man limbs along with others afflicted with skin deformities in ‘freak’ shows.
Dr Anthony Gaspari, a world expert in skin conditions from the University of Maryland travels to Indonesia to attempt to diagnosis Dede’s mysterious condition. He takes skin samples for biopsies back in the USA. What will he discover?
We go on an intimate journey with the extraordinary Dede, as he tries to eek out a living in a circus troupe to support his family, and as he is given medical help by Dr Gaspari. The identification and possible cure of his condition, could change his whole life.
Half way across the world, in Romania, farmer Ion Toader is discovered to have a similar extraordinary ‘Tree Man’ condition, with growths all over his hands. He has not been able to drive a tractor for five years. A Romanian surgeon offers to give him an operation to remove his growths.

Will it be successful, and how will it change Ion’s life?

Huang - 31 years old and the oldest of three siblings, since childhood Huang has suffered from Neurofibromatosis, a condition that has made his face a swollen mask of tumours. One eye is barely discernible, the other has been completely covered over by one of the many grotesquely long pieces of flabby flesh that ooze downward on his face.
His face makes up half of his body weight and has given him a hunchback. He rests it on tables when he’s sitting and holds it up with his hands when he moves around.
His mouth could be discerned by the presence of a swollen, sore-blistered tongue; tumours had knocked out all his teeth. When his family members or others spoke directly to camera in Chinese, they got an English-language voiceover. Only Huang got subtitles, his deformed mouth most likely making his words difficult to understand for Chinese speakers as well.
The one day, Huang takes aBold step, to travel Hundred of miles for the first time to the City, to undergo a potentially life-saving surgery, that will remove the malignant tumor and help him regain his self dignity within his community.

In March 2003 doctors at Calcutta's Institute of Child Health made an astonishing and ground-breaking medical discovery. Quite by accident they had unearthed the only family in the world known to be struck by more than one case of progeria, a rare and incurable genetic disease. There are currently only 48 known cases worldwide, all of them isolated and seemingly random. But the doctors in Calcutta were faced with a mother who had given birth to five affected children.
Progeria is caused by a single tiny defect in a child's genetic code, but it has devastating and life-changing consequences. On average, a child born with this disease will be dead by the age of 13. As they see their bodies fast forward through the normal process of ageing they develop striking physical symptoms, often including premature baldness, heart disease, thinning bones and arthritis.
The 80-Year-Old Children follows Dr Chattopadhyay who diagnosed the Khan children in 2003 as he returns to Calcutta to treat them. This is the first time that the family have been filmed for a documentary. Ikramul, 17, and Rehanna, 19, the two eldest progeria children, see this film as their opportunity to tell the world their story before they die.
The 80-Year-Old Children describes the race to solve this scientific riddle and ultimately cure this devastating disease. It also offers a moving testament to human dignity under tragic circumstances.

Milagros Cerrón is one of the world's most unusual babies. She was born with sirenomelia, or mermaid syndrome, a condition in which the legs are fused together. This rare birth disorder affects one in every 70,000-100,000 babies (it occurs with about the same frequency as conjoined twins).

What makes Milagros really special is the fact that she is still alive. Aptly, her name means 'miracles'. She is one of only two known survivors with this condition worldwide - the other is a 16-year-old US girl named Tiffany Yorks. Almost all sirenomelia babies die within days of delivery owing to serious defects in vital organs, particularly in the kidneys, bladder and associated ducts.

Milagros was born to poor parents from an Andean village near Huancayo in Peru. At less than one month old, she was plucked from the obscurity of her rural roots, taken to Peru's capital city, Lima, and paraded through a national media circus.

She became the pet project of the charismatic and politically ambitious plastic surgeon Dr Luis Rubio. He orchestrated both the medical care and the media attention that Milagros was subsequently subject to. An eight-hour-long operation to separate her legs was broadcast live on Peruvian national TV in May 2005. Dr Rubio was filmed, scalpel in his hand and microphone at his mouth, proudly spouting progress reports to attendant cameras whilst performing the surgery.

Milagros became known nationally as the Little Mermaid. She, a symbol of hope for a country in deep economic depression, and Dr Rubio, the hero who came to her rescue.

The surgery appears to have been successful so far. Milagros is now well enough to attempt to stand up, although she can't maintain stability because she has no hipbone sockets. She will require more surgical interventions over the coming 10 to 15 years in order to reconstruct her urethra and genitals, which are abnormal. It isn't yet clear whether or not further surgery on her legs could help her walk.

Petero Byakatonda lives in a remote village in Uganda. Born with an extremely rare disorder, his skull is being forced into a cone shape, squashing his brain and destroying his eye-sight. He has been flown to Dallas, Texas for life-saving surgery from a leading US surgeon.

Petero suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as Crouzon's Syndrome or Crouzon's Disease. It affects just one in ten thousand new-borns and needs to be corrected within a few months of birth. Because Petero's village is so isolated he was left untreated. It's extraordinary that he is still alive.

In Crouzon's Disease the bones of the skull fuse together prematurely, so the skull can't expand as the brain grows. The brain is forced to grow in the direction of least resistance.

Dr Kenneth Salyer the leading craniofacial surgeon who will treat Petero explains "Petero has ended up with a steeple-shaped skull because this was the weakest area of the skull. So the brain grew up instead of forward. This can result in constriction of the brain to the point where there may be herniation at the base of the brain and death".

Petero's trip to Dallas and his subsequent treatment was made possible by a charity headed by Dr Salyer called The World Craniof

Story of Manar Maged: On March 31st 2004 in Aghur, Egypt a young woman, Naglaa Mohammed Yehiya, is rushed to hospital in labour six weeks early. She is expecting to give birth to twins, confirmed in earlier scans. The first twin is born normally and is quite healthy. The second twin is causing problems. After several hours the hospital need to conduct an emergency caesarean section to deliver the second twin.
In a condition known as Craniopagus Parasiticus a second parasitic head has developed attached to the host head. This is an extremely rare condition and only about 10 cases have ever been recorded. Of these, only three have been born alive.
The condition comes about when the egg splits to form identical twins. This would normally occur at 10 weeks. However with Naglaa it didn't occur until 13 weeks resulting in conjoined twins. Damage with the blood supply in the second twin made it draw blood from the join at the skull forming a parasitic connection. Manar's little heart could not pump enough blood to support two bodies, so the second body could not develop. The second skull and brain were able to develop more or less normally.

The parasitic head is very much alive and displays reflexive behaviour.

This Documentary tells the story of Lakshmi Tatma, the girl with eight limbs.
Two-year-old Lakshmi was born with one of the world's rarest physical abnormalities. Joined at the pelvis to her half-formed conjoined twin.
Lakshmi Tatama is an Indian girl born in 2005 in a village in Araria district, Bihar, having "4 arms and 4 legs." She was actually a pair of ischiopagus conjoined twins where one twin was headless due to its head atrophying and chest underdeveloping in the womb. The result looked like one child with four arms and four legs.
In her remote Indian village she is revered as a living god. With exclusive access, this film follows Lakshmi's family on an epic emotional journey from their rural home to a hospital in Bangalore where her parents must decide whether to proceed with potentially life-threatening surgery to remove her extra limbs.