Film Forum

Begun just days after the January 23, 2020 lockdown went into effect in Wuhan, and filmed without Chinese government approval, 76 DAYS is an intimate experience of life (and death) inside 4 Wuhan hospitals in the eye of the storm. The first 10 minutes feel like a Hollywood horror movie: hordes of desperate people storming the hospital, faced by beleaguered medical staff. Chaos, shouting, and tears give way to what becomes the new-normal – as doctors and nurses, clad from head to toe in hazmat suits, exhibit moving comradery with one another and profound compassion for their patients. There’s even humor and pathos as a new baby is born (dubbed “Little Penguin”), a confused elderly patient insists on haunting the hallways looking for a way out, and workers write messages on their outfits, like “Clay Pot Chicken: I miss you.” The Atlantic magazine hails 76 DAYS as “both unwatchable and utterly compelling… unvarnished and raw, a first draft of a history that’s still being written.”

USA/CHINA     2020     93 MINS.     IN WUHAN DIALECT MANDARIN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
MTV DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Virtual Cinema program supported by the Robert Gore Rifkind Foundation.

Reviews

“A remarkable documentary. A bracingly immediate view from the frontlines of history.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“One of the gutsiest, best, and, oddly, most hopeful [COVID-19 documentaries]… funny and heart-racing, heartbreaking and humanizing. An invaluable record of this moment.”
– Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

“A riveting documentary. [An] astonishingly candid and deeply wrenching portrait of death, suffering and compassion.”
– Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post