- PANDEMIC19 follows three brave doctors working to save lives during the first wave of the outbreak told through their own intimate video diaries, encapsulating the historic times in which we live.
- PANDEMIC19 is a poignant document of the factual and emotional details of Covid-19 as seen through the eyes of three American front line doctors. Smartly utilizing the doctors own video testimonials, this film feels alive and immediate while we remain so disconnected.—Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2020 Jury
- PANDEMIC19 is a short documentary film that captures the story of three doctors in the United States fighting COVID-19 from pre-to-post surge, told through their own reflective, humanizing voices, while the chaos of the pandemic permeates outside the frame of their video confessions.
In March, 2020, as the United States began rolling out "shelter in place" orders, the majority of the populace felt distinctly distanced from the opponent they were fighting. The virus was invisible and so was the frontline.
PANDEMIC19 sidesteps the salacious news headlines by focusing on the personal video journals of three doctors as they prepare for the "calm before the storm" and through their direct experiences with COVID-19 patients. As the days unfold, the doctors check-in and record their changing impressions: fears, hopes, challenges, and triumphs - laying bare their emotional feelings. They are unfiltered and subjective. Dr. Virginia Brady is the chief resident and Pulmonary Critical Care Specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Her journey, expressed with charm, humor, and empathy, charts the unpredictable psychological toll - the conflict and turmoil - a medical doctor is confronted with when trying to treat an unknown and deadly virus.
Dr. Brian Chang, a carefree ER physician from Northern California, decides on a whim to offer his services in New York City. What begins as a decidedly skeptical response to COVID-19 becomes a sobering reality check.
Dr. Pooja Aysola is an ER physician in Massachusetts and an MBA student with an objective to improve healthcare at MIT. Her story follows the alarming side effects the pandemic has had on a privatized healthcare industry whose bottom-line is driven by profit only. The doctors' intimate video confessionals are contrasted with the serene and surreal landscapes of a country under quarantine (the empty streets, desolate parks, the encroaching wildlife and somber cityscapes). The contrast between the visceral comments from each doctors' video journals and these eerie interstitials heightens their internal dramas. Each doctors' confession immerses us into their worlds forcing us to visualize the chaos they are experiencing outside their video frame.
The effects of COVID-19 will extend far past this initial surge, rolling out into (possibly) two years of on-and-off isolation. In the US, as confirmed cases rise to over 7 million and the death toll hits the hundreds of thousands, PANDEMIC19 brings the doctors' reflections to the forefront of this historic outbreak in order to awaken the American people to the stark realities of defeating an intangible virus.
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