The culture of propaganda and cover-ups that kicked off the pandemic is the subject of this compelling documentary by award-winning director Nanfu Wang (One Child Nation). Wang, who traveled with her family to China in January 2020, saw and filmed the pandemic firsthand, and wrote to major newspapers like The New York Times to convince them to write about it. They never did.
Media and government in both China and the U.S. played down the threat, and this documentary asks how different everything would have gone otherwise. More dauntingly, it’s an examination of how the Communist Party in China managed to use the event to its advantage.
""In the Same Breath" is a fervent work of reporting, filled with shocking revelations on both a close-up, experiential level and on the level of overarching statistics and trends."
— Richard Brody
"It may not diagnose a new problem, but "In the Same Breath" doesn't lack for narrative drive."
— Eric Kohn
This documentary recounts the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the novel coronavirus and the way two countries dealt with its initial spread, from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States.
Spirit Awards
2 nominations
Sundance
1 nomination
