- 12 minutes ago
With the help of covert reporters on the ground in China and direction from documentary filmmakers Hao Wu and Jean Tsien in New York, the team behind '76 Days' was able to bring the impact of COVID-19 to a global audience.
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Short filmTranscript
00:05Hi, I'm Rebecca Keegan from The Hollywood Reporter, and I am delighted to be here for
00:10The Hollywood Reporter presents an exclusive Q&A with the filmmakers behind 76 Days. I'd like to
00:16welcome director Hao Wu and producer Gene Chen. Great to have you. Let's start off by talking
00:24about the extraordinary access you have with this film. How did you get inside those hospitals
00:31in Wuhan? So for 76 Days, I actually remote collaborated with two filmmakers who gained
00:39access inside the hospital. Those two filmmakers, they actually didn't know each other, they
00:44never met, but they were filming independently at four different hospitals. During the lockdown,
00:50the government restricted access to the hospital to patients, medical workers, and reporters
00:57only. But one of my co-directors, Anonymous, he was a local photojournalist working for a local
01:07newspaper. So he was really familiar with the different hospitals. So he basically, he showed
01:13them his badge he could get in. And my other co-director, Wei Shi Chen, he's a video reporter
01:19for Esquire China. But he wasn't sent by Esquire China to cover the story. He went there because
01:25he just wanted to be there to witness history and document it. And at the beginning of the lockdown,
01:30there was absolute chaos in Wuhan and at the hospitals. A lot of times, once you got in, you know,
01:36show them, once the hospital chief allowed you to get in, nobody would have the time or energy to watch
01:43over your shoulder to tell you what you can film or cannot film. The filmmakers pretty much roam freely
01:48in the hospitals. And to be honest, I think at the very, very beginning of this lockdown, the
01:54hospitals themselves welcome people to come in and try to tell stories to the outside because they
02:00desperately needed help, needed donations or PPEs because there was a severe shortage
02:05change in the beginning. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was so little known about how
02:12COVID was transmitted. I'm curious how your filmmakers who were inside the hospitals were functioning.
02:19Were they fully dressed in PPE and were they worried about their own safety at that time?
02:26Yeah. Gina and I, we constantly talk about this, right? We want to give a huge kudos to the co
02:31-directors who
02:32took enormous personal risk to be filming on the front line. They started right at the very beginning.
02:39And like you said, there was very little known at that time how dangerous or transmissible or deadly
02:45the virus was. So every day as was shown in the film, the medical workers had to go through this
02:51elaborate
02:52ritual every day to basically put on multiple layers of masks and suits and seal every opening. My co-director
03:01went through exactly the same process. And once they put those PPEs on and once they are inside the
03:08contamination zone, they really couldn't get out for bathroom breaks because that's the only quota of the
03:14day. So once they got in, they really tried to do as much filming as possible. And it was really
03:21uncomfortable.
03:22I mean, once you seal multiple layers and really couldn't breathe. So in the film, you saw several
03:29medical workers that sometimes they would lay down on the bench in the hallway to rest because they
03:34were, they lack oxygen, right? They needed extra oxygen, wearing those extra PPEs. So my co-director
03:41was suffering the same thing every day. It was physically extremely challenging. And also most probably
03:47more so it's emotionally very draining because the witness people being resuscitated and even people
03:54dying right in front of their eyes. Yeah. The scene where a woman is asking to say goodbye to her
04:02father,
04:02which opens the movie, is devastating. And I was amazed that there were cameras to witness it. It's
04:09really, really striking. How were you communicating with folks? I know initially at the beginning of the
04:14pandemic, you had been in China, visiting family, and then you came back to the US. What were your
04:19lines of communications with your colleagues who were working in the hospitals? We relied on the
04:25internet. So with my co-directors, since they really couldn't take their equipment out of the
04:32contamination zone, because anytime you take anything out of the contamination zone, you have to thoroughly
04:37disinfect it with alcohol. So that might damage their equipment. So they will leave their equipment
04:41inside and just take the disk out. And then they were using a cloud service in China as a backup
04:48and
04:49they share their logins with me. So I was in New York and then I would download the footage, the
04:56rushes
04:57from the cloud and review them. And then we will have voice chat whenever, you know, in their evening
05:03time and morning time, whenever they were resting. And then we'll talk on the phone to figure out
05:11what's the production strategy, which characters to focus on. But most of the time, they have to make
05:17snap decisions on the ground because things change so fast. Whatever character we determine who might be,
05:23you know, key characters, the next day might be transferred or even passed away.
05:27Were you able to freely share things over the cloud? I mean, I'm thinking of particularly as the
05:34pandemic progressed, the relationship between the US and China worsened. And so I'm curious if there was
05:40any interference with your ability to share this information about the pandemic over the internet.
05:47Thank goodness it was over the internet because just recently, another filmmaker wanted to ship me a
05:54drive over FedEx and it was stopped by the custom and then it mysteriously disappeared. So with the
06:01internet, at least, you know, the gray firewall hasn't developed the AI capability to figure out what's in
06:08that video footage yet. So we haven't had any problem. If anything, just because the slow speed across the
06:16gray firewall makes the collaboration, there's always a lag of a couple days before I can download and view the
06:22rushes
06:22and have meaningful discussions with them.
06:26It strikes me that one of the big story challenges, storytelling challenges in this is that your
06:31characters, the doctors and nurses are covered and they're sort of unidentifiable. How did you guys
06:38address that and figure out what to do about that?
06:43Actually, that was the first when Hal came to me with the film. And at that time, he wasn't sure
06:49there was a film. Yes. I said, just send me three scenes. And I was actually stunned that I'm so
06:58involved with the film without seeing any faces in full. Like you say, everybody's covered. Like, you know,
07:05you see the eye sometimes. And I just, we went without instant. It's about what's happening. It's,
07:13you could feel the, the, the love, the caring, even behind those masks, the PPEs.
07:19Yeah. Jean is an editing master. So Xie and I, I mean, I basically learned how to edit from
07:25Jean and then doing the editing process, she and I, I passed every scene and every cut to her. We
07:30have a lot
07:31of discussion. I think in the end, what we decided on, uh, at the very beginning, I guess there was
07:36some concerns about
07:37not being able to show people's faces, whether audience can track their stories throughout the
07:42film. But gradually what we realized is that we also did test screenings, obviously, right? Remote
07:47test screenings, uh, along the process. What we came to realize was, uh, as long, because the scenes are
07:53so emotionally tense and raw. And, uh, as long as we keep, uh, the, the story beat around the character
08:02to us,
08:03to the same beat, for example, for the couple is always about reuniting with their newborn baby.
08:08For the old grandpa is all always about wanting to go home. Right. And then for the, for the female
08:14nurse, yeah, head nurse, it's all about returning personal effects to the, to the families of the dead.
08:20So as long as we keep the story just around that emotion. So every time when audience see a new
08:26scenes
08:26and once they figure out what the scene's about, what the story is about, they immediately make the
08:30connection to the characters who's involved that story. So, so we, in that way, we try to simplify the
08:36story. And also, I guess it helps because this film is pure observational. There's no talking head.
08:42There's no, we don't disclose any backstories of the characters. So what you see is what you get. I will
08:48always keep what the audience sees around that particular personal theme around the character.
08:54And why did you decide not to have talking heads or, or kind of framing narrative in this film?
09:01The, there are a couple concerns. I think one thing was, it's hard to really go back to do pickups.
09:09And that's one of the issues. And secondly, there was a period of time when my co-directors, they were
09:17actually a little bit reluctant as the geopolitical tension between US and China ramped up. They were a
09:23little bit concerned because we have never met them. We only talked to each other over the internet and
09:28they were not sure where I wanted to take, to take the film. And especially like, I'm here in the
09:35US,
09:35I'm an independent filmmaker. And they were, they were a little bit concerned. So, so at that time,
09:41I think Gina and I, I talked to Jean. I think Gina says, why don't you, since you already download
09:46the
09:47footage, why don't you go ahead and continue to edit, edit the film? And then you can have a discussion
09:53with
09:53them to see if your vision and their vision are in sync. So I think, so at that time, when
09:59I was
09:59trying to prepare a cut with, with Jean's help, I, the, you know, I couldn't ask them to go back
10:05to
10:05to pick up interviews. So that's one thing. And secondly, by that time, there have been so many
10:11sort of TV documentary on China state broadcasters, also about hospitals. So every time I see people
10:18coming on to the screen and tell them about their feelings, tell them about the, their own personal
10:24backstory, I feel like kind of destroys the, the emotion that was so raw on the front line capture
10:30on the footage. So, so both for both of the reasons, and in the end, I was like, maybe we
10:35shouldn't let
10:35them talk. Maybe we just let the viewers immerse because that's, what's truly unique about the
10:41footage. My two co-directors have captures. Well, also how I work with house previous three films,
10:48how is that your mid career filmmaker, you know, he had previous career and he's done every single
10:54star. I just say this film, let's try a direct pure direct cinema to the purest form. And that was
11:02another reason I say, just go for it. Yeah. It's also challenging to try something completely new.
11:07It was a lot of headaches, but in the end, it was a lot of fun as well. Well, and
11:12as you say it,
11:12it distinguishes it from all the news coverage that we've all seen these past few months.
11:17I mean, in some sense, it's, it's risky to take on a topic that the whole world is looking at
11:23as a filmmaker, you know, you might say, oh, I'm going to go explore something else because
11:28everybody else is looking at, at this pandemic. Why did you decide to go straight into the story
11:36rather than, you know, tackle some other topic? I think, I think the, the, the shape of the story
11:44did come together during editing. And in the early days of production, we, we thought about whether we
11:50should truly do a global pandemic story to cover different. I reached out to filmmakers in other
11:56countries. And I was in New York when the pandemic hit New York. So I was filming on the street.
12:01We, Jin and I would talk about, maybe we do us a tale of two cities comparing Wuhan and New
12:07York.
12:07But in the end, I feel like, first of all, what's truly unique, even to this day, I haven't seen
12:13footage
12:14from anywhere else in this world is about how, how this footage just take the viewers to the eyes
12:21of the storm. You're right there. You're seeing everything happening and all the complex human
12:26emotions just come, come out. And so in some way, we really wanted to, to maintain that. That's one.
12:33Secondly, I think because we're still living through this pandemic, if we introduce any news commentary,
12:40talking heads and people opining about who did what right or wrong, I feel like that's too, too newsy.
12:49And also, whatever they say might turn out to be not correct, six months from now, because the
12:55situation is continuously evolving, right? The pandemic and the social and political repercussions
13:00continually evolving. So we just like, but, but then, at the same time, we keep on going back to,
13:06we want to tell a human story, unique human story, because that's what's universal based
13:12on our understanding of the story happening everywhere, not just in China, but in the US
13:17and Europe, that how the, how the medical workers and the patients that help each other to survive on
13:22the front line. Yeah, it was striking to see all the little ways people's personalities came through,
13:31despite them being covered in PPE, you know, with folks writing their names on the back of their
13:37scrubs, drawing pictures, drawing pictures on a little glove. How did you find the elements that
13:43personalized your story amid this hospital environment?
13:49And Jean definitely helped me a lot. I think, I can only speak on my, you know, I edit this
13:57film
13:57following my own personal instinct. And also, I guess, it was influenced by my personal feeling
14:05as well, because my, my, both my parents have late stage cancer, I constantly worry about them
14:10in China, they're living in China, I couldn't be there for them, during this whole crazy stages in
14:16early stages of the pandemic. So I felt guilty. And also my grandpa passed away from late stage cancer
14:22as well, in March, I couldn't go back to say goodbye to him. And so all of that brought a
14:28lot
14:28of guilt. And, and, and also, I guess, when I was editing this film, when I was putting assembly together,
14:34for me, I was always looking for those little details of people reaching out to help each other,
14:42to connect, because I, I thought about how lonely and scared my grandpa, my grandpa must have felt,
14:48you know, on, you know, in his hospital bed, even though he didn't die off COVID, he died of cancer,
14:56but then the whole environment in the hospital was really scary. And not many people could go visit him
15:02during the COVID time. So that that really guided me to, to pay attention to really focus on those human
15:10moments, and then try to pick them out and try to build things around them and try to string them
15:16together.
15:18Yeah, we actually just decided we're going to stay inside of the hospital, we, you know, that we don't
15:25really want to include, you know, the exteriors. So in that way, you with your in that confinement,
15:31you do look for the details. And because also because of the limitation of the, you know, we can't see
15:38the faces.
15:39Mm hmm. How did you go about finding your distributor for this? I understand when you started out,
15:44you were working for an American TV network, and then that changed. What was your process like of
15:50finding a home for your film?
15:55Okay, well, so in April, I, in April, I mean, that's just a few months ago, I got the first
16:02scene in my
16:03computer. And we had zero cent. And really, there was no, and I say, well, you're an editor, you're in
16:10lockdown, we have nothing to do. Let's just see how far we can go with this footage. Basically,
16:16we didn't have any expectations. But so two months later, I have to really say, how really edit this
16:23film out of grief and anger, and all the confusion, all the human emotions. And really, in quickly,
16:30in two months, he gave me a rough cut. That was early June, I say, wow, also our title 76
16:37days,
16:38it ends on the 76 days. So we have a beginning, middle, end of a film, I said, well, let's
16:44see if I
16:44can submit to a film festival. And the first one was Toronto. And the minute Toronto accept the film,
16:52we just felt, oh my god, we do have a film that's viable. And let's find the money. And so
16:58I start
16:59calling people. And the angels came. Yeah. So I think for a while, only Jean knows I was working
17:08on this film, because around, there's a lot of geopolitical sensitivities about COVID. We didn't want
17:13too many people to know we're working on this film. And so we didn't reach out for funders. And like
17:19Jean said, we only reached out to funder once we we heard where we're getting to TIFF, we needed to
17:25to have post production money. And at TIFF, as first of all, you know, we had some expectation going
17:32to the festival because this was the first COVID film premiering at a major festival, we were maybe
17:40we had some expecting about distribution, but we actually didn't get any sales because most networks,
17:44they already have some in house production or co production. And Jess at Heartland and Sheila Nervans of
17:52MTV documentary, she was on the jury, she saw the film at Heartland International Film Festival out in
17:58Indiana, she fell in love with it. And, you know, things just happened really quickly after Heartland.
18:05That's great to hear. I mean, obviously, she's someone who knows documentaries better than anybody.
18:09So she if she sees something she likes, Sheila Nervans, impeccable taste in docs. Last question,
18:17as we wind down, I mean, what strikes me about the way this film ends is that it's actually quite
18:23hopeful. There's a lot of compassion that we see, there's a lot of competence that we see.
18:30I imagine from the footage you had, you could have edited this in any number of ways. Why did you
18:37choose
18:39to share that picture of Wuhan at that time?
18:46For documentary filmmakers, we always have the question how we're going to end the film, because
18:52real life continues to evolve. And I just remember in early April, before I even started editing, I
19:01remember watching a video shot by somebody's on their phones. I shared on social media in China,
19:10just about the morning, this entire city shuts down for three minutes and moon the dead, while the air
19:17ray siren blared all over the city. I was just crying because at that time, it's a lot of emotion,
19:23not just
19:23because I worry about my families in China, but also because we were living through the very
19:30the peak of the first wave in New York City. I mean, all around me in New York, there was
19:35siren
19:36constantly blaring. There's a lot, and also there's a lot of political like question about how, why, why,
19:42why did the government, Trump, US government even fail this, he failed to handle this. So there's a lot of
19:48complex emotions in my head. So when I saw that video, I just, I just started crying. I just started
19:53crying. It was a, it was a, it was a, it was basically, it feel like that should be the
20:01natural
20:01ending for a film that's so intense, because that's a point that everybody could get, got together in
20:09Wuhan, in real life to mourn, to mourn the, every, everything they've lost, and trying to remember,
20:16trying not to forget. So I feel like that's a nice coda for this film, trying to remember every,
20:21everybody, even though this film is not political, but it's, I hope people kind of remember this,
20:27remember the human suffering, remember that we can be kind to each other still in this, in
20:33catastrophe like this, and never forget this, and try to do better next time.
20:39And also you'll realize that in the beginning of the film, we show the death, the first step,
20:44and throughout the film is actually we never talk about death, until the very end, when,
20:50when one of our characters, Gwailin passed away, and her daughter came to pick up,
20:55you know, the, the, the IDs. This is the only two deaths in the whole film. So it was important
21:02to
21:02remind the audience that the COVID, it really is, it's, it's the suffering and the loss, and the end.
21:10Yeah, it was beautifully framed. Thank you guys so much for that. And thank you for joining The
21:17Hollywood Reporter Presents, an exclusive Q&A with the filmmakers of 76 Days.
21:21We'll see you in the next few days.
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