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>> Thank you so much for coming to our youth then it's not. My name said seen real associate a professor of Chinese in the school modern languages. This is our very 1st event for this year's Global Media Festival as you may know the full the title of our festival is sustainability across languages and cultures as a founding member of the organizing committee I'm proud to say this is our 5th year and every year we focus on one theme and for this year the same thing is sustainable cities and communities which is one of the United Nations sustainable development goals as you know our present Capra has been actively promoting and advancing these goals at Georgia Tech and our festival is part of this collective effort and this event is often left by the school of modern languages and the co-sponsored by China Research Center and then talk Lobo Studies Center Office of the vice provost for international initiative and the Sir learn something at Georgia Tech I like to take this opportunity to thank all of our co-sponsors for your courage and support and as a kind reminder this event is being recorded and will be archived in our Georgia Tech library for anyone to appear in the.

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Recording in this video you have to sign a consent form. So if you don't want to be included in this video please keep your video and all of you off all the time thank you so much for your copper ation. And try to recall our festival with this very timely documentary I will hunt to the early stages of a global pandemic as we all know one highway of the 1st city where the call of ours broke out the city was locked down on January 23rd 2000 tensions and the lockdown was lifted 76 days later hence the name for the documentary a year later New York Times recently called to hunt the 1st host to pandemic city so finding out how quickly the city recovered from Cali 19 is culturally to the to the theme of our festival also seeing the also think of all cities and communities I hope by now you have already watching the film and I believe everyone is eager to meet the needs doctor of the federal minister who haul.

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Thank you. So this is an outrageous pleasure to introduce Mr Walker thanks so much for accepting Are you my Taishan And for joining us tonight thank you it's Ok. Thank you a.j. it's a great pleasure to be here today for the audience here's a brief introduction Mr Will is a tri nice American writer documentary doctor added her and a producer I found his resume is very interesting and a unique human a region of the grain in biology and received a Master's Degree mamma Lechler biology from the Brandeis University he then got his m.b.a. from University of Michigan.

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But of course his family has a true calling writing and the filmmaking so I found this is a very sorry for the Georgia Tech students right to some which are major finish of their offense and just to clear 1st yes. Ok and the middle has made a several a word of winning documentary such as the road to fame in 2013 People's Republic of the Zire in 2018 the short all in my family 2000 my team and of course this 1676 days which he could cope started with child we see an anonymous most of his films are on Netflix and Amazon Prime and I highly recommend to you to watch them if you want to gain a better understanding of contemporary China.

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So Mr le to start with our events can be pretty tough part of the process of making this film like a want to inspire you to work on this project in such a timely fashion and how did you get to know your art to collaborators in China who contacted call 1st and you know you know something like that yes well.

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It's over a long story so usually I like to make character driven stories make it character driven films so I tend to shy away from news it's hard thanks because a lot of time I wonder what more can I bring to a topic that's being well covered by news media but ways with the carbonite chain I guess it has become personal for almost everyone in this world so on January 23rd 2020 that they will I was put under lockdown I flew back to Shanghai I had to China to spend Chinese New Year with my sister's family and my parents in Shanghai so I made a plan travel time.

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A couple months in advance and you know 24 hours before the departure time we learned about this lockdown so we're freaking out I mean we're all regionally my partner and I would take our 2 kids to spend the 10 day holiday in Shanghai. When we heard about this lot that were like what is going on in China because in early January we have heard a mysterious pneumonia cases coming out of.

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China social media but nobody very few people was taking this seriously but but in the end I decided to fly back by myself because because my parents have cancer I want to spend time with them but cancel the ticket for my partner my 2 kids because we don't know how dangerous you will be in China and spending Chinese New Year you shall have I was a really bizarre experience doing coke in 2020 because.

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As soon as well I was put on Darrell fish a lockdown the rest of China when doing 2 voluntary shutdown as well though Shell has China's largest city of 21000000 people. But China sewers the largest family holiday usually you will see people on the stream restaurants visiting each other but last year it was nobody on the street nobody was visiting each other so he really liked stayed on me that there that the impression of being in the so I thought a movie essentially and also I spent a lot of time researching on Chinese social media is really to find out what was happening and I think the entire country of China and that's how I was confused and also angry it's very hard to make this so but people don't understand specially after SARS right SARS it was in 2002003 so people in China you remember science people were asking how could it become so bad we should have learned some lesson from SARS but anyway so coming back to New York in early February I was still thinking about or reading about it every day and then I usno work approach me and ask me if I want to make a film about this outbreak it will hurt you know that that became the impetus really to push me to star making this film even though later on this u.s. Network dropped out I continued all independently so to star I reach out to over a dozen a filmmaker who has started filming will have.

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Most of them were young filmmakers because more established filmmaker that's in the beholder to have kids that have to leave with her parents so you don't want to travel to just in case right you bring a virus back so I thought a lot of young young young filmmakers who started filming some of them were inside the hospitals others were also to hospitals but then because the radio and some of those Sometimes you need to have very limited experience in terms of when I look at the footage they shot the quality is kind of right some were good some were not so good but as soon as there's so much to collaborators photos which they share with me home life.

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I was really like shaken because you know for anybody who's seen the film I'm on the 1st batch of footage that was shared with me including the opening scene of the nurse running down the hallway wailing pop up she wanted to go but so I remember watching that just crying because even though I had read so much about what was happening what I've watched cellphone video share on social media but it's not the same it's not the same when you have a professional cameraman there who does capture the you motion the rawness the nakedness of the emotion so well so that's when I decided just to like I want to collaborate with these 2 and the article the other co-director I'm on the 1st batch of video to share is actually the 2nd scene which is the patience of banging on the door trying to get inside the hospital so I remember I was getting goosebumps watching that because that did feel like a zombie film very in some some kind of.

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Dystopian us I feel so yeah so I talk to the. Basically asking the are you willing to collaborate in the beginning obviously I've never met them before so it took a while for us to build up the trust at the very beginning I just said whatever you want to do I can help you do it I can be a producer but the let's start talking so gradually would be able to trust our way and they started sharing their daily rushes with me over the cloud service they will pack up their footage on to the crowd after each face filming and then I would download thank goodness to I do cut clout so the cult because you know you say it was impossible to ship any physical drive out of will because when I was under lockdown at the time so you know you know I will watch the rushes and have discussion with them yeah that's how the collaboration started Sorry so long answer Thank you so much for being so informative otherwise I wouldn't know so much details about.

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Making this film Well anyways this event features of interdisciplinary panel discussions with Mr Lew and I like to introduce our 3 wonderful panelists and the dear colleagues 1st Dr Michael asked he is associated professor join to appointee to the school of the city of original planning and the School of Public Policy is the current research focuses on women's actions towards climates resenting of urban poor in South Asia Welcome Dr add it and a document on why she's a system the Professor of Japanese and has done a lot of research on films in China and to Japan Professor wise is also a doctor of our global media festival of this year and a doctor who Neal is a visiting assistant professor in Chinese and she specializes being visual cultures in modern and contemporary China the deal is also the main authorizer of this event and it will serve as a coordinator to facilitate our discussion tonight.

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So without further ado the floor is yours. Thank you so much Jane for into the action and again I would like to thank how far accepting our invitation and congratulations on the audience award of if I test and many other words that followed. So I watched the film from beginning to end twice and there were 3 watch the many many of the shots and I found myself deeply moved by the documentary so in the time when the pandemic quickly evolved into blame game and a flood it always races the language to politicize ation and conspiracy theory I think compost sites across the Pacific Ocean I think Lee appreciates that to show us the the complex humanity and human condition and how this human connections playing out in the contamination zone of hospitals and actually my reflection will revolve around the key word to recruit connection which is sort of reverberating when I watched your documentary it's began ways the it was connections last as you just mentioned the very poignant opening scene we saw a nurse saying goodbye to her father and actually the 1st the word in the documentary is papa but actually it is already an utterance of loss so 76 days release thrust into how the virus this robs and terminates family connections and not just between life and that in the very early coke he all take face of the lockdown people lost connections with their families and friends and you feature that in the film they didn't even know if their beloved ones could get caught hospitalized in the 1st place.

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However within the confined space of the contamination zone you also show us new connections are. Being created we see the medical workers and nurses they call the patients grandma grandpa on t.v. on call as a family and one of the doctor says you don't have family here so we are your family and that's deeply comforting I think for all of us.

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We also see an old couple for instance who pose and were hospitalized but in different words and they're so eagerly and anxiously trying to reconnect to receive each other and at that moment something wonderful happens that doctors and the nurses the only actors with mobility in the hospital perhaps besides the virus I'll say they serve us the media and the messengers for this old couple back in forests so when the time when people are trying to close the connection close and stop the transmission human beings become the medium of communication and connection as we see it in this way it's more all the more interesting just think about how the patients interface ways that doctors and nurses because that interface with faces actually covered by masks and bodies covered in in the half matter I so the individual ality is were very much he raised and then I thought of this very vivid of the nets where the doctors are writing words characters and drawing on their half mass so creating this new and returned screening for their new type of interfacing and that's both creative and touching and meanwhile while the human beings serve as the mediums of communication the actual medium the communication tools of the cell phones seem to become vibrant matters and take on their own lives one of the many powerful things that we see the camera zooms in at 8 baskets of id cards and cell phones off that that and some of them are still making sounds they're ringing and one of them even said shows they have 31 read messages so the cell phones they out live their owners.

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As humanities and I think is interesting in environmental studies we often talk about how that you waste the material substance of electronics they would outlive humanity because they take much longer for them to decompose but in this case we also see this out leaving case yet in a completely different context and I think all of these connections lost and recreated and realigned become all the more surprising for us when we think about the whole strategy of trying to deal with this virus is demarcation is to cut the connection from the overall lock down to I think one of the visual motifs in your documentary is barriers the ira insist worth established the bicycles were stacked to create the water can find that they were what count pounds and it is across this all kinds of barriers and boundaries within the contaminations of the hospital a new coal system is formed where the human lives in the extreme fully link with each other and not only with each other but also with other machines objects and the whole system technology so I have a lot to say but I think I'll stop here I will save time for discussion of other visual materials of visual details I would like to ask you one question about the documentary ethics.

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I think that the cameras don't shy away from shooting disease and death and so very happy topic so I wonder if you would like to talk more about how you deal with this ethical question when when filming and editing 76 days and thank you so much again thank you professor.

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I think what you said was so he lights me I hope and from now I can take you with me on the press tour of explaining the film to the media you're much more eloquent than I are. I think with the ethical issue yes it is it is challenging goes in production and you post production and.

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During production because my 2 co-directors so much to cut you out of it didn't know each other there were filming independently just individually and they couldn't take any pen and paper to go inside a contamination zone because anything coming out of contamination zone has to be had to be thorough it is in fact they with alcohol so they really couldn't take anything and then all we did in terms of asking for consent is basically record a video consent or are you Ok with being filmed.

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And then the 2nd thing I keep on Carson to do is that I know it's a challenging environment. It's only because it's typically with a documentary Usually we would do research will find cast our characters we would get a sense of what's happening and do some planning before we start filming but with in this case it's almost my co-director 1st of all started before I you know approached them right and they were throw into the situation everything was changing so fast for any character they think might be interesting character to follow to continue filming by that person like if you're really so bad and make they can all speak animal or they were passed away so in a sense it's almost like a war zone right there were just so in there are things are.

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Pretty chaotic So what are you encouraging them to do is there. Capture of air capture video as much as you can just treat it as a war and but obviously I'd chose to collaborate with because we have shown enough empathy respect in terms of the way the film that there are characters that's why I like based on the rushes I review.

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Going to into the editing it is where the challenge insular how much of the horror we show right because this cup of film. I think that started everything in a pro early April by the time when I think about I remember I had seen some news footage of a hospital scene in New York and also in Italy you know Lombardi revisions very but then I just I'm feel like now has been enough like the the the true horror of that because what the news shows you is basically like I see all the rules in the room I see a room and the House and the paths are separated other bodies were housemaster but there's really no like raw emotion is showing there so for me and that's how much you feel like I wouldn't want to document for history.

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The true horrors of this pandemic because at that time I think I will also have been we have a lot of pockets down people telling you how horrible it was but visually we don't well we have even now I don't think we have seen enough to have enough of this kind of visual evidence and so I also remember I read about the 1917 damage flu.

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Pandemic also like we have very limited even photos from their Europe right to document so I just feel like I what I want to have I really want to show respect to the. To the people have been film one on the other I really want to show what it's really like so so basically I feel like the camera should not look away when tragedy happens but it should not be also be what you are this way example we have a lot more shot scenes of their body being wrapped up being carried away but other than a show in the 1st scene of the nurses that have been willed away from the room you know about it and also another place we saw their body was the.

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You know the nurse like you talk on the phones do you want me to take the bracelet your person is over here so these are the 2 places where received that body because that he says show to the character's story and the other places were if it's not absolutely essential we tend to just leave them out also for people all integrative brigade I think we will have a death we have a lot more shots like that but we try to minimize it but also the same it's a balance we're trying to maintain a balance I'm not sure we get the optimal job done that's the best we could at this point.

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But thank you so much for showing how you're delicately trying to balance the filmmaking and also is the ethics and I think Amanda also has more comments about the documentary right on to start Amanda So in May I am. Nowhere near as eloquent as blue and I am just I'm just going to give you my reading of the film very briefly what's that going to purely emotional level and I just want to say from that 1st see and I felt overwhelmed I moved.

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I cried many times watching the film and as you said before this started when you saw that photo its director or you said that. You are so crowded when you start out fetish for the 1st time of the nurse losing her father. The u.s. in feels like it's in the midst of a surge that never ends and it feels like where we're surrounded by last year's drought.

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And so when I thought of the way that you constructed it made me feel so connected to the people who I was watching I felt it felt very close and very familiar to me because this feels like the present it feels like the reality that we are in right now and they felt very powerful to me I think as I watched I was also thinking a little bit about the far more choices that you were making this very naturalistic cinematography is very beautiful as well but it's also very natural.

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And this very pared down sound design in the way it's very nationalistic Now it's no music. And the clothes that they use these clothes that I mean there was no connection earlier these close ups of hands or of anything any touch that you sign the film you know it's like it kind of hits you a bit like a like a late mean streak and ultimately when I came away with was the emotion of this film and this very humanistic in touching story.

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If humanity I think that can access if we go back to their roots idea about connection so my question for you is kind of a little of that on the later and you are getting into this towards the end of the year your answer. In the midst of all this travel and emergency and dare I ask these moments of levity these moments of humor and of hope in the.

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Actually laughed out loud at the lone taunt but don't let the nearby lake in that scene where they played there was no Google they don't really that full some of the early scenes of The Who and how they they had trouble communicating with. The cartoons in the global looms these little moments of knowing at times they also thought of it too I just wondered how do you.

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You know it in editing or in something like How do you find those moments to highly in the midst of something that's just very tragic. You know so I think definitely the film came in 2 stages right there in production production it's primarily my culture after years of credit to their credit I mean once again I chose to collaborate with them because I sense they're very sensitive and sensitive to.

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The people in front of the camera the sensitive to their emotion the sensitive to details and I also I sensed they were also looking for. Just the human factor writing all of this because. You can easily make this into a procedure like how a patient heart doctor save a patient but doing editing I think for a while we struggle with how to shape this film for a while I was reaching out to filmmakers in Milan in Madrid I was so I started filming.

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In New York myself because of a lot with maybe we should make this a global film but then after. Talking to all those people and then realized my culture of this footage is surely surely you knew we couldn't get at the footage in a warehouse and then comes the question so you fully focused on one how to eat and this film what's the container quote unquote the container of the film.

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And then because obviously we can contain a film even after the lockdown was you got lifted right to your chair to film the recovery of the city of the people but also I just remember being early April I saw cell phone video be shared on Chinese social media of the city shut down for 3 minutes just warning that there were some delay I remember you really emotional you know I was crying again because I feel that there's such a.

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Such a great relief collective grief a moment of closure grief so I feel like passerby the end of the film so once we know the end of the film we know to begin it definitely is the start of the up there and the how to construct there I mean.

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You know you talk about this film being repaired on we're going to use any news archive or with you the news and a news clip but you knew you were going to sit down interviews. Because we want people to experience what it's like and then in too much if that we focus on the emotional truth rather than the day to day beat by beat How many cases right how many faction cases how many That's what's the number stated a number so so in the beginning it's about Chaos panic fear of No No everything's out of control and gradually you see things starting come getting under control but as soon as that happens like comes back the after down the bickering right the fisherman bickering with the we were where we were with the way things the the the medical staff and the and then as we see this city gradually recovers also seen the war humor returns so so in some way you can gradually sense feel like the city and its scope of people are becoming more and more hopeful and then so so yeah it's it's got a really strange for me like I've never done this film before either having the absolutely strongest emotional point at the beginning of the film I never done it before usually you're delaying right until the climax the film is kind of us but this time just because that's how life is given a lot of them you start from the absolute part of your gradual a climb up others ups and downs in the doing the process and India's your thought everything is a happy ending now but then you think about all the debt and then your term back and try to remember things and then it's a moment for grief and for you know.

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For people coming together and and grief so yet so I don't know whether that really answers your question but then that's some of some of our intentions. I think it's great Tell us about your process and how you approach the free time thank you so much I'm going to have to learn to Professor Al yet you know it's coming from the city and regional planning and would you like to give your Thanksgiving class can.

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Be proud to Ontario as a city planner I approach that from a perspective of the United Nations sustainable development goals that is the theme for this film festival which is sustainable cities and communities where I was what really struck me in looking at this as a city the city of 11000000 people is the scenes that were specifically about the city which there were not many but but there were a number of scenes which largely showed the city as almost bucolic right I mean there are birds in trees there are the streets are fairly empty but there's a dynamism to the way that they get filmed and and what struck me about this is you know the city is bucolic because there aren't people there that in essence the nature of the city has been removed and what you're left with is infrastructure and that kind of nature that has still occupies that and so thinking about pandemics and the role of urbanization you know it's 1st of all I'm cities have historically been the center of where a pandemic start and where they go you know they pick up at you go back to the playground Athens and all the way up through the early 20th century as well as in the locus of.

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And so there are gateways to also emergent infectious diseases because they're on the edges particularly a city like Will Han which is on is expanding it was a $1000000.00 person city and 15011000000 and now it expands into the into natural areas where paps and other kinds of creatures live and where this kind of mixing can occur.

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So that's one of the kind of activities that are particular to the fact that it's a city. There's also in the kind of notion of urbanization there's this tension between on the one hand a sense that cities are in fact places where infectious diseases can be managed more effectively and in many ways your film shows part of that infrastructure item and that kind of hospitals and there was a significantly more than than that kind of hospital you showed because we'll hire an added Bank 16 additional centers with 13000 beds in order to deal with the moderately sick people who are not in fact meeting the full hospital so there was all this infrastructure around health care but there's also other ways in which that is have dealt with pandemics in the past they've added water supply clean water supply they've added sanitary water systems and they've dealt with the issues of food and foods who were supply and how that actually plays out and and also issues of blame and security in the placement of people in their 2nd where they actually live and so there's a kind of backstop to this which is not explored in the film which is that cities can do that and they can do it quite well but we are social security systems fail where poor hygiene emerges or where there aren't rapid increases in infection risks especially pathogens like this.

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They can in fact start to deteriorate quite quickly right now and often in pandemics you see cities as being a place of despair and and sorrow all of that is to say that that cities play multiple rows there are in the United States a lot of attention around cities more fall a-g. which is basically what Howard City is adjusting to the fact that there's so much potential for disease transmission in terms of changing the way streets are used or any number of other concepts.

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So I was just wondering as a question for you to reflect on whether you rather the city was just ancillary to the film or if you were conscious of that where you were presenting in the city and whether you had any thoughts about. Including other aspects of the city other than the kind of isolation and the openness that got created in the film you know I think that's a good a good question as well thank you Professor I think in the beginning.

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There once again whenever we talk to the filmmakers in 100 there have already being other filmmakers work with started filming there I think for a lot of us are insisting it was voted to talk him into law when we said we wanted something a lot though everybody wanted documents the entire city and you know the lot of them were say the and the Reaper to hold the city so full my team specifically we actually film more than what's shown in the current film we film we film outside or outside a hospital we film you know bottom chairs as they've tried people around more volunteer driving because I don't know locked down there's no public transportation and they're very in that limited numbers of cab drivers so a lot of times I have to rely on volunteer to to to to to to to carry patients so.

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Medical workers around ever also filmed a little bit of inside people's homes but then we quickly gave up on that idea. Because there were a lot of cameras religious a call for a film crew independent film crew with no no government approval because we don't have a permit because during the lockdown you will have once you are once Mike culture got after inside a hospital in such a contamination zone nobody bothered to watch over the show because everybody else was so busy so they had a lot of freedom to film but once you get out of the hospital you know to go inside or any presidential compound you have to show that you actually live there nobody's allowed if you don't live there is nobody was allowed to even go go inside so we we couldn't even go our my team couldn't even go around and film people were stop you.

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Were stopping on the street and checking I.D.'s trying to figure out where you're going so that's our intention or originally wanted we definitely wanted too. To show what's happening be the beyond the hospital but then you realities that are just going to it's very difficult in terms of production and secondly because to make an emotional only resonating film.

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You know your early cuts of the film we did include war outside of the hospital but then I think Professor wise mission of we in this film was one of her down will really want to show the royal motion we didn't have music we didn't have excess a sound designer so that means if we go out of this if if we show a scene that really there's not much going on with our music at the carriage it can feel extremely extremely slow for.

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Perspective So that's why we took on a lot of the some of the scenes that we think could be interesting to viewers but then in the end for the artistry into you know so like our our perceived artistic integrity of the film which took of those scenes. Well thank you very much I believe we're going to go to open questions from the attendees at this point and who are to leave you are going to manage that.

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Thank you my camper up has in that active me yes so if you have a question please type it in the chat box. And. You can do that in 2 ways you can either type in the our whole questions in that way I will read a present for you where you can indicate that you have a question and I will cue you and invite you to speak yourself.

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Yes we already have. 2 questions I'll just read one from Katrina says this what this was an amazing film thank you so much for creating it and for the opportunity to view it one question this was an extremely emotional strenuous film was there a specific way your collaborators decompressed after filming after film as a result of the extreme mental and emotional toll.

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Yeah so it was really challenging for much of your actors because at the beginning of their filming there were more water about getting infected and then it's about the daily grind of putting on multiple layers of p.p.s. and not being able to breathe very easily exhaust there were multiple people use and continue filming but I think.

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Like 2 weeks into filming I think you know they suffer more the anguish of feeling this out of survival skills because they were filming people are deteriorating very I was a people passing away. Through this you know really hopeless because they wanted to be like the medical staff and try to help the patients but the honest truth was even a medical staff was what they were they were help feeling helpless because like they didn't have any anything to lean on they didn't know how to treat these patients are I remember I was talking to one of the doctor who was sent from Beijing to her us telling me he treated like 23 patients in i.c.u. all of them passed away.

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So you can imagine that a kind of drain on the medical team is like they couldn't save anyone so for my collaborator it's the same thing that like they feel emotionally just so traumatized every day so it's special as the days moved on and then for a while I think we only get a glimpse that the lockdown was ending I think in the March we got a glimpse that things were really putting were being put under control but also for a while from what I was nobody knew how long the laughter would be would last and from a co-directors you know they were pretty much a lot inside Vegas on their way sneak their way inside of her but that there's no way out and then there would be separated from the family and after the filming every day they could only go to the kind of Korean chain hotels the government assigns or the medical team as well as the media people to stay here so they got there they were feeling lonely they were isolated themselves as well so I mean but then the only thing I could tell them is that you know take a day off if you're feeling well you cannot go on but assuming Carson does is go back about filming because what we're doing even though right now feels like it's not directly helpful to anybody but it's important it's important.

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Thank you we have 2 more questions one about the production were any of the seeing staged and another one it's about the reception and you could just talk a little bit about the responses of 76 days in one hand particularly from the hospital workers who were featured in the film Yes So 1st of all none of the scenes was staged or you saw my took collaborator just run you know running or running I see you're trying to follow the action what's happening there.

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So far this film has not been released in China and so because even though this film is I would say a political That's our intention but in the same time going in post-production during a production we're not sure how government would view independently produced film that portray some of the early panic and fear and chaos you will hear and also whether they would be Ok with some of the details being portrayed like food some of the question really early Christianity cannot be talked about in Chinese in China's state media so so and also my I'm not co-director not him as he's he's a photojournalist for a state owned newspapers so you know he just want to be extra careful he wasn't sure whether the government.

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Employer would find fault with him for doing this all whether. You know some of the nationalistic internet trolls in China would accuse them of what would have helped him for trying to portray China in your new negative light. Just like trolls are no we're not just each other chosen to run our can be of greater vision so so we peace and we've been intentionally shying away from.

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Chinese language media about the existence of this film. Thank you and John. Actually can I can I just ask her. When I saw this it actually struck me as being highly favorable to the response because they go from this incredible level of uncertainty and an impossible situation to bringing it under.

[00:44:19]
Not only control but to our humanistic and and in a place where the death rate in the end turns out to have been managed incredibly well so can you say more about why you think China might react now you know who I mean it's just the story line up with yeah so so your professor earlier your you know your responses among the many similar response we've been getting this is with Premier of the film last September which came to me as a surprise because it went well or making a film right we're following all photos that's what's really happening there that's not our intention to portray and it's heroic or how Chinamen are just so it has no intention our our our concern especially my coach I found not to Mrs concern was to follow one is that since the since March China's government have intentionally tried to control any narrative so you want to approve and a narrative about the law because he was under.

[00:45:25]
Immense pressure from the you know from Western government also from the trauma musician right so so has the you seen stimulus control anything anything that's not been vetted or preapproval the government reviews are very suspiciously that's one second away with my past will not in the past from touched on politics directly but then my last features about life sue me celebrities in China I wanted to release in China but in the end the censors were not approve it just because the way you know certain things the live streaming celebrities they were saying on the Internet just the little things so in the end was very personal for me I don't want to deal with the censors in China to let them know that this film exists Serco way it's I think it's a more so speaks to my co-director anonymous fear because he is in the system he's fearful of any potential backlash that's fixed to.

[00:46:24]
The kind of anybody right now is very careful in China about saying anything about the community and them and control measures in China publicly to media so it's more about that other men directly about the film itself if that makes sense thank you thank you for inviting our at GNC graduate students to speak speak out I like to ask Johns Yes question about characterize a season where you intentionally building their characters the characters of nurses and doctors and make them memorable even though they are faceless Yeah that's so that's a response I got a lot from.

[00:47:10]
You know it's all American viewers who don't know Chinese for me when I was editing them I know who which character is west right because their names are reading on the back of the headmaster in Chinese characters I could tell them apart so when I was editing it's you know you are cursed to Mrs I mean obviously you're in documentary films even when you can see people's facial faces you usually idea that your idea there is the title in their names and to China but I think India then I think what we decided to focus on we knew the not be able to see their faces it can be a problem but I think what we're really doing everything is really trying to leave one emotion of before each character but a young couple it's all it's all about reuniting with the baby for the fishing and grandpa it's always while finding home you know look at the beginning he want to get out of the hospital go home or later in the end he found a surrogate home within the hospital and with nurse young Leigh it's all about saving the personal effects of the death and trying to return them to the families of the dead so.

[00:48:18]
I feel like by you when you don't know whether it's going to work but in the end I think through the 1st initial test screening I think it worked people remember because there are scenes their stories are so emotionally charged and so moving so I think people you know they remember his characters and also in the end I was talking to my team.

[00:48:41]
You were thinking even if you cannot tell who is home doesn't matter because this is a cool ensemble portrayal of the group of people the medical professionals as well as the patients so this is about their stories and with this film other than the old grandpa which appears so frequently throughout the film none of the other characters appear more than 4 times in the film so if the bodies are just a supporting character so in the end it's a it wasn't too big of a concern to us but luckily for us I think there are stories a so emotional I think audiences remember that.

[00:49:20]
I remember all the stories. Characters. Lot of. Michael I didn't I didn't do it down a little bit the film the 1st one is more just like a comment something that I really noticed and I really liked I think we've all had sort of a collective strange concept of tie him in this like last year and I think that I definitely saw that in the film where you know there are some really.

[00:49:51]
Just like poignant clock shots where the seconds just take. And I think I notice sort of in the 1st half of the film where there's just a lot of chaos there's less. Sort of notions of time and then as things sort of like calm down I feel like you start to see like the days are moving.

[00:50:10]
Until you get to sort of that April 4th day and so I don't know if it was intentionally that way but that's sort of what resonated with me and I I really liked that part my question was mostly I think they spent most of the documentary just being really impressed that you guys were able to get this amount of footage.

[00:50:27]
Just because you know things have just been so shut down in. China were fairly intense and I know there's like a lot of. One of my questions was just. Maybe from your end being able to see the body of footage that you had sort of looking at that and trying to put together you know a cohesive picture where there are things that you wish that you were able to capture that you weren't or some favorite scenes that you.

[00:50:58]
Ended up having to. I think we 1st of all we use most of the our favorite seniors and there are there are some other scene stuff for example like you specially in the early days. Are too cold you have to really film a lot of patients once they're out there were a mirror inside a hospital the family felt safe they open up in front of the camera the trigger camera Michael Jordan almost as a therapist they were telling the Horowitz I'm not being able to get inside the hospital the early panic you know it was really heartbreaking when I was trying to going through all of them it's almost like individually testimonies write about the good the fear of the pandemic.

[00:51:42]
I couldn't include all of them here because they're just speaking directly into a camera right and also it becomes repetitive or you know from the early the with the scenes and a few of those characters speaking towards each other or together how fearful there were how desperate they felt so so that's part of you know that's part of the thing that felt so close to me just because they were pointed our hearts out literally and to the tell most about I couldn't really for once again for artistic reasons I really couldn't include all of you there but the you know.

[00:52:17]
That's a question that's a question right yeah yeah and just like if there were any other things I know you talked about it being really difficult to shoot sort of outside the hospital I just didn't know if there were other ideas that you had had that were sort of restricted by.

[00:52:34]
On occasion Man Absolutely absolutely there were so many characters Ok so like we feel we we actually films 2 of the early weeks of your doctor and I think before a lot of you probably heard about the whistleblower doctors in beginning they were being suppressed by the local government local police right so we were trying to get in touch when we finally got in touch with 2 of the people become in touch with a really neat March but that's how things has truly stabilising was and they would just not not much to film anymore in their respective hospitals so all we did was capturing their interview was raided to retell the story so we had a deep into whether we should include as those interviews or not but in the end with decided not to because stylistically so different from the rest of the observation of very serious films and secondly by that time by by by a pro like those stories have been so well reported it is like why do we want to because you say well you know I asked him everybody is still following the news they probably read about it already why do I want to retell it so so so that that's was something I also that the stories like we got in touch weekly.

[00:53:48]
With. With patients you know aids patients right they couldn't get in and it's medication at a mall because the lockdown severely disrupted the farm sort of a go to deliver system and we will we got in touch with cancer patients who came to her for chemotherapy but all of the hospital were reserved for code in 1000 so the quote and even get so that the cancer metastasize and a 19 year old girl was dying inside a hospital these are all heartbreaking stories so that's why I think as a as a documentary filmmaker obviously if we can capture those story it's become so powerful just like you know you can read all about the early chaos in lockdown no hope but once you see 76 days you really feel it but in the same time we are limited by our form of our media form which means we have to be there to film them but then for example because the kinds of patients they're leaving a quarantine hotel we really could not get inside the hotel and film them so that's some of the regrets.

[00:54:55]
Yeah but then I guess we can only work within the limits we have. Thank you things we start Lacelle let me ask one more and the last question is from Sophia and I think it's a nice perfect question to conclude our conversation do you ever approach editing the film thinking about the racism bigotry that's happening in the States and I would like to add one more what kind of difference do you envision $76.00 to make and these are the current political situation.

[00:55:31]
Yeah I think I don't when I read it it is like writing you can be too intellectual when you are writing you can be thinking too much rationalized too much a lot of time when our editing I follow my instinct write my my emotional his thing this scene this shall resume to me I think this flow works better but but looking back absolutely a lot of things were impacting me right I mean my personal family situation my parents have cancer I cannot even be there in person to comfort them because so far away and then us last year was going through so much you know the black lives matter protests and everywhere every city was being locked down there's huge political divide and it seems like more and more so when I was reading of the film the u.s. called in 1000 response was like completely losing control and also enter Asian racism absolutely all of that.

[00:56:28]
Was impact my only emotion the public guided me in in our subconscious way to really focus on because I feel like we're in this film also was almost like a coda therapy for me because we were all isolated we're all I salute you know all respect the bedroom sitting in front of a computer right and then I think I think what can this film save me to some degree because I was able to leave not not leave a character but also to find the glimmer of hope the glimpse the little gestures of kindness to show me that you know because if you read about the history of pandemic and I mean it's always been bring out the worst in human beings very well as blame others for our own faults we're always skate go right but then but then just watching this footage don't give me hope so back in some ways that definitely impacted how I pick up certain details tried to talk about trying to construct a story in this way but in terms of my intention with this film I guess there are 21 Is there.

[00:57:30]
I definitely want this film to show people that Colbert is real that's just a lot of people I was listening to our pockets from a conservative party has just a check check check her out they're still debating like a couple days ago whether you know the best way numbers whether this is a bad flu or now I'm like come on you know just watch this you know there are so many how many families how many individuals This has destroyed Secondly I think I think this film by no means I'd intended film to be authoritative account of what happening was it's not it's not it's one film made by the street co-director of my team to tell the story we want to tell the story we want to tell is that we're dealing with that when we talk about pandemic that's not just focus on the numbers that's not it's focused on the politics either domestic politics or international politics let's also don't forget that humus the human beings that the individual stories that you know it's a lot that can easily get lost in the big picture discussions and also more importantly I just feel like it really takes a community to fix our entire city takes a country takes the entire world to do so is to survive this I just feel right now all of these questions tends to be a little toxic I understand where why people take certain political steps Absolutely but as well going through this crisis I do feel like let's be our little more humble is trying to learn from each other let's try to see we are all human beings you know don't just like.

[00:59:10]
All of China as China has to see if he has the government know it's not these all people have agencies look at these people they are all capable of making decisions to be kind and I sorry it's running so sorry you know. But then the glimpse of hope and warmth as their families spilled out and is passed down to the audience and thank you Howard so much for again for this.

[00:59:36]
Vibrant. And in this awards season just best of luck was with you 6 days and and. And then then saying would you like to conclude by introducing more of our global media festival and then. Secondly I'll take it all and so I and the current director actually if you like Joshua Wagner and you want to wait here's our graduates to Mr Stan I'm going to show you.

[01:00:03]
Just share some links so if you're interested in any endurance ends that are or are going to I am going to share them in a chat. To you take a look at our next screening it is going to be about. Japan so please feel free to take a look and yes this recording will be publicly available after am really the library is going to archive yes thank you very much and James your flabby really.

[01:00:35]
Experimental Gen That's not using its And. I think you guys are the cows great job I really thank you Mr Hall I mean so look up giving us a such she is inside full and very hopeful messages and that's the one of the major reason why we want to bring this film to Georgia Tech community and I founded this film is so warm and that's an if we hope it will help bolster and promote the u.s. China relationship as you said trying to is not just a c.c.p. right it's all about people the culture and so you know the Family Relations thank you so much and to also thank our coffee our colleagues Dr Lou Amanda and a professor at the it's and also Joshua thank you so much for a 15 and as you're Thank you Michel and all I want to focus field events and for the audience for attending our event they're saying thanks to the kind of.

[01:01:43]
Do they're really not ever going to. Have a good time.