 Hello. I'd like to welcome everyone to this presentation of New America. My name is Josh Keating. I'm a journalist at Slate, and I'm speaking today with Hao Wu, who is an award-winning documentarian and filmmaker. He originally trained as a molecular biologist and then began his career in the internet industry, working in both Silicon Valley and in China. Since he's transitioned to filmmaking, he's produced and directed a series of really incredible films about transformations in Chinese society. Those include Beijing or bust, The Road to Fame, People's Republic of Desire, and most recently, the film we're going to talk about today, 76 Days, which is a portrait of an intensive care unit at a hospital in Wuhan in the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. And just for some breaking news that we just learned yesterday that the film has been shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Features. So congratulations to Hao for that. And I should say for the purposes of this event that Hao was also an International Security Program fellow at New America, as well as a 2015 National Fellow with the New America Fellows Program. And I have a lot of questions for Hao, but before we begin, I think we just have a short clip from the film we're going to play. Hi. So, you know, from the point of view of a journalist, I mean, as that clip showed, it's really incredible the kind of access you got in this hospital. So I'm wondering if you could just start by talking about both how you connected with your two collaborators on this film and how they were able to get this incredible footage from inside the kind of place that, you know, one year into a pandemic, we very rarely see in any country. Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much, Josh, for moderating this talk. And also it's great to be back to New America, even though just only virtually over Zoom. I have very fond memories of being a fellow over there. And in terms of how the film came into being, in early February, I started researching this film. And I was in New York at that time. So as soon as I started researching, I reached out to over a dozen filmmakers who had started filming in Wuhan and just through introduction by other friends. And some of them were obviously filming inside of hospitals. Others were filming outside of hospitals. And so I started talking to them. And at the very beginning, it's more like there's anyway just been trying to build up trust, just like how can we work, how can I support whatever you want to do before I even say, okay, can we collaborate? And, but I've said, so I've talked to over definitely over a dozen filmmakers and then I found from my two co-eventual collaborators. As soon as I saw their footage, I was really blown away because by mid February, I had spent a lot of time reading about news reporter and also social media accounts of what's happening in Wuhan, been following that, you know, every single day, closely monitoring the situation remotely. But then I had very sort of like little access to what's truly happening on the front line, right? I mean, these two collaborative footage really brought me there. Let me feel about the emotion, the role, the fear, the panic at the very beginning. So that's why I really focused on trying to collaborate and talking to them and trying to build up a trust to collaborate with them. During the lockdown in Wuhan, the access to hospital was really limited to only medical workers, patients and reporters and some state sanctioned filming crews. So for my two co-directors, but at the same time, the decision-making is actually pretty, at least at the very beginning during the initial chaos of the lockdown. And the decision-making of who to give access to even for reporters is being made at the hospital, very localized hospital level. So for luckily for me, my two collaborators, the both reporters, one of them, wishy chen, he's a video reporter for Esquire China. He wasn't sent by Esquire to cover the story because he makes documentary films on the side. He's aspiring filmmaker, so he just wanted to go. And even for him, even though he has a reporter's badge, like he can at least say, you know, I want here to do some reporting. But at the beginning, he was turned down by four different hospitals until to his own personal connection, he found a medical team that was being sent from elsewhere in China to help support a local hospital. And then once he arrived in Wuhan with the medical team, the receiving hospital considered him part of the medical team and allowed him in. So that's how he gained access. And for my co-director anonymous, who opted not to reveal his identity in this film, he's a photojournalist with a local state-owned newspaper. And for him, he had already know a lot of the hospitals there and he had legitimate business to be there taking photos to accompany some of the new stories. But then he decided to start making videos because he just feel like photos are long and we're not able to capture the intensity on the front line. And, but even for anonymous as a local reporter, he wasn't able to get access to a couple of hospitals that were the hardest hit. For example, like, you know, for Wuhan Central Hospital, where Dr. Li Wenliang, who was one of the early whistleblowers, and where he worked and because a lot of medical staff got infected. And that hospital didn't allow any reporters to go in unless it's officially under official business to be there. Yeah, I mean, do you have any idea why the hospital that you did end up filming in just to participate in this film? Why was that they allowed you this level of access? I think, first of all, in the very beginning of this lockdown, because a lot of hospitals were running out of PPEs. They needed medical supplies. If you follow what happened during the lockdown in the first couple of weeks, some of the hospital actually, you know, went on social media in China just appeal to people to donate goods there. So, so for some of the hospital, they have the incentive to really let reporters in to report what's truly happening. And so they can get more support. And secondly, like, for example, like the case with where she chained at the hospital for a while, I definitely thought where she was working with the medical team arriving because, you know, the local hospital saw them arriving together. And as soon as the medical team arrived, the medical team kind of took over the management of the local hospital because the local hospital were overwhelmed. And, and, and, and then I guess a lot of times because they have reporter that reporter so there's some some kind of sort of good kind of trust. It's not just like any kind of independence rushing to the hospital. But as soon as the reporter might to collaborate got inside of contaminations on because they're on the front line the situation was so chaotic. Nobody had the time or energy to watch over the shoulder to make sure they don't film this and that. So my collaborator even both of them were filming independently just by themselves. They could pretty much roam free inside of contaminations. Right. Yeah, I mean that's something that struck me I mean the, when we think about China's response to this pandemic, one thing that gets emphasized a lot, both by critics and supporters is, you know, how sort of orderly. And, you know, the level of planning that goes into this but you know the film really shows how chaotic and panic that how much chaos and panic there was in those early days in Wuhan is that something that you were like, consciously trying to depict in this film. Absolutely, I think I think right now we with China, and there are two prevailing narratives right one is about his early failure about suppression of whistleblowers and also the early panic and really, you know, drastic and fast decision making about locking down, not just actually the surrounding cities as well in pretty much very soon afterwards is the entire province of who they was under lockdown. So that's one narrative. The second narrative is about how efficiently it put and quickly put the outbreak under control. So in this film, even though, because for artistic reasons we didn't include a lot of the social media. You know, people share, you know, share on social media a lot of the footage they capture on their phones, and about the absolute, even like worse chaos than what's been portrayed in the film in the city of Wuhan and in the early days of the lockdown. But then I feel like we, I needed to tell at least the emotionally true story about how fearful people were at the very beginning, how scared they are about the unknown because there was so little was known at that time how dangerous the virus was, as well as how life came back somewhat to normal gradually in the city gradually, you know, you know, had his rebirth later on so that to me is to all of us is very important to portray the accurate. Right. And I'm curious what the response if any to this film that has been in China, I mean, as you mentioned one of your co-directors has chosen to remain anonymous and I'm curious both about that decision and also you know what the response has been for how the Chinese virus response was portrayed in this film. Yeah, so So the film really came together during editing so during production because of a so chaotic on the front line I mean I will have frequent discussion with my collaborators about which character to to to continue filming and And also I asked them to, we actually did quite a few interviews with not only volunteers, but also with whistleblower doctors who who are part of the group that initially really trying to get the message out, as well as some dissidents was doing the government. But in the end we decided not to include any of that, primarily because those are when we approach this characters we were not able to capture really good observational footage right what we call veritable footage and mostly sit down interview that really doesn't cut well with the rest of the film which is so, you know just let the viewers observe But, but then do editing I mean I told my, especially my co-director anonymous is that we're not making a political film and you know political film, because what we want, you know what we wanted to do to really showcase how a specific Mohan story can also be universal as well because I lived in, I lived in New York I was in touch with a lot of filmmakers in Madrid in Milan, the hospital right of COVID. So I came out here in the same story about the panic about hospital running out of PPEs and how people really step up and try to help each other living through this. So I told him that I was like you shouldn't be concerned but I think because there's so much COVID has become such a geopolitical conflict point and not just the Trump administration at that time was really like blaming everything on China and also Chinese government in turn starting in March really really tried to clamp down a tightly controlled and narrative you know about its COVID response. So I think my co-director anonymous just became really nervous. He was not sure even if we, even for this political film, for him he was not sure what the government would think about our portrayal at least the early panic. And also how about showing the tragedy how about saying that the ending, maybe the ending wasn't like triumphant enough for the government. So for him he just thought because he only worked for a state on media in his entire professional life he's extremely concerned not in addition to that he was also concerned about increasing numbers of nationalistic internet trolls in China who just latch onto anything that portrays China in any negative life. They will you know launch personal attacks online. He's afraid that it's going to impact his job as well. So that's why he decided to remain anonymous out of respect for his wish. So we at the beginning when we launched the film at Toronto International Film Festival we actually since then we've been declining all Chinese language media interviews we just want to say we want to observe how at least the Chinese diaspora outside of China are perceiving this film and then we will decide how much to talk to Chinese language media. But then just very strangely about a month ago I think maybe a month ago because this film we are MTV is marketing this film doing this awards campaign. A lot of film trade publications started talking about this as a potential work container. So there was one influencers in China that just picked up on this news and and then it started trending when viral in China. It was also before the one year anniversary of the Wuhan lockdown. So so pirated copies started popping up everywhere on Chinese internet. So people have been able to watch the film that way in China. Mostly I think Chinese viewers who watch the pirated copies and their response has been really positive because it's a way this film to me is about clear the grief right and the very end is about trying not to forget about the tragedy trying to remember what went through and also it's an allergy to some degree to the Wuhan lockdown. So most Chinese viewers understood that but then just as anonymous as fear the internet trolls started attacking me because without even watching the film they say the fact that western market like this film it's evidence enough that the film is definitely biased. It's a very negative portrayal of China the study attacking me personally. Anyway it just become kind of ironic. It's like at least watch the film first. But I guess internet trolls are the same everywhere. Exactly. You know to that point I mean the format of the film you know you don't have any narration there's or you know direct interviews this very little text that appears on the screen it's very, as you said Baratay style almost reminds me a little bit of Frederick Wiseman documentaries. I'm curious why you made the choice to film it that way and if that was in any way kind of anticipating some of this response you were just talking about. Yeah, we didn't. We started out wanting to making a more traditional documentary right we wanted to capture some variety and also because it was so difficult to do any sit down interview at that time because everybody was rushing around right and we were thinking after everything, you know, kind of have gone back to normal has gone back to normal to go back and do pick up interviews with them right. But then I think I just doing and but then a couple things really emerged during production. Which was, it's really hard for us to focus for my collaborative really keep track of one or a few main characters and follow their journey through quote unquote journey through this lockdown experience because things happen really quickly. And then patients might deteriorate so bad they could not talk anymore, or they may pass away or maybe get transferred to a different hospital. So doing production and doing editing and the early stage I just realized I have all these wonderful emotional moments, you know without very raw moments on, you know, a lot of flinching and portrayal what's happening on the on the front line but then how do I put this film together. And, and also I've seen by that time I've seen enough of Chinese government produce documentaries, where they sit the interview that the characters and somehow asking them to retell their experience on camera, kind of like diminishes the power of their experience, which, you know, has already been captured on camera so, and, and so that's why I in the end I just like you mentioned federal wise man so when we ran into the editing issue. We went back and watch a lot of other film for inspiration and federal wise man was definitely one of the biggest influence that you know, maybe what we can do is let people observe what's happening on the front that rather than trying to explain to them what this character or at which stage, you know, the lockdown that will have outbreak was that and we also experiment with cutting in some news, news clips to explain the bigger context to even talk about you know how the pandemic how the outbreak was expanding globally becoming a pandemic. And in the end it's also artistically just kind of take the viewers out of it. And, and then, you know, and then we just made a decision why don't we just go like wise man all the way virgin. You know, because we realize in the end, knowing many other filmmakers are also making cove films and particularly other cove from above as well. So I just feel like there's no single film can be the quote unquote authoritative account or what happened during the lockdown and we can only provide one side of the story, and then we can tell the, as long as we tell that story well, and that can be part of the composite. Later on people can use to to to really truly understand what happened. Yeah, another thing that really struck me in the film was the relationship between the generations you show I mean obviously at a year for a year very young hospital staff and mostly elderly patients, including the one character the grandfather who kind of appears throughout the film. I'm wondering if there was something you were trying to say about that about the relationship between the sort of younger generation and their elders in China and what the pandemic has sort of revealed about about that. And we didn't aim to comment on that aspect, but I think, if anything, it's more, it just reflection of the reality that most of the patients are older middle age to seniors. And most of the medical staff especially nurses because the government had a volunteer call right asking people to volunteer to go to Wuhan, and most of the people who volunteer to go to Wuhan, I'm younger definitely younger. And there are some doctors who are middle age as well, but I think for us, for my collaborator just much easier to film the nurses, because for the doctor, you know, the, sometimes they will discuss very sensitive patients, you know, medical record information and they didn't want to be filmed. And, but if anything, I think the film, you know, for us is more about how people build surrogate surrogate families in a house in doing such a catastrophe because the one of the cool things about COVID-19 is that the isolates people isolate patients patients a lot of time to feel alone. And also, when they need their family the most for emotional support, they were not able to get that. And I think, you know, as soon as the initial outbreak, the panic phase passed, you know, you see life kind of coming back to normal. You'll see them addressing each other as aunties and grandma and grandpa. And then you see this kind of a family relationship started forming, which, which, you know, there's some specific cultural things to it about China, but also I think everywhere based on the stories I've been hearing is the same thing happening in the New York ICUs as well. Right. Another thing, I mean, a lot of your some some some of your earlier films, particularly people's Republic of Desire, last one I saw sort of dealt with internet culture and sort of changing ways people consume media and information and this film is obviously very different but there was a little bit of that in there. I mean, there was the sort of scene where the doctor tells the patient to stop searching by do for information and then also the the phones being a kind of motif the record like how people's the phones of the deceased patients are sort of passed on to their relatives as mementos. You know, I'm curious how you think the sort of role of technology and and the way people sort of consume information now impacted the way that patients were treated during this pandemic. Yeah, I think the phone social media played such a huge role in doing COVID, especially initial outbreak in China. I remember I was in Shanghai, when Wuhan was under put under lockdown was there visiting my family. Some day, you know, I just remember everybody glued to their phone during the Chinese New Year. The entire country of China was shut down everybody stay home inside during the two 10 day holiday. Everybody was on social media trying to find out what was happening in Wuhan so just for information access I think social media sometimes can play a much, you know, play a positive role. About how we can get information more accurate on censored by the government, but at the same time later on, obviously, like in the field, there's a lot of misinformation as well, and people love to share on social media about this miracle cure. And then, you know, they're, they're, they're bees doing the lockdown that have been there be unfounded fear of people who once contracted COVID, you know, they can the virus will come back for those individuals so many people were showing patients even after they were released by the hospital in Wuhan as well. And also just in terms of how we keep in touch with each other. Right. I mean, you'll see in the for those who were lucky enough to have a phone, and most of them were except for some very senior people. And, you know, that's how they keep in touch with each other. That's how they call people from the outside to feel that connection, but also phone becomes when the head nurse was trying to save the personal effects for the relatives of the dead. Two things they have to say, one is the ID card because that might be useful for official reason for their certificate, whatever reasons like that. But also the other things definitely phones because phones the last one, we keep on memory, we keep our chats. So, yeah, and it's, it's become such an integral part for both good and bad. We're talking a little bit before the conversation began about obviously right now, the WHO investigation team has just left Wuhan and the story of Wuhan and late the origins of the virus become very politicized, particularly in terms of the conflict between China and the US. I'm curious in that context, you know what do you have hopes for what telling the story the way you did can add to the conversation about and this kind of political moment around the beginnings of the pandemic. Absolutely. I think I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, at the very beginning when I started researching this film. I think my feeling at that time my motivation at the time was kind of similar to the that how the vast majority of Chinese people in China were feeling, which was one of confusion of anger of about how, you know, even after SARS the mismanagement of SARS, how could we do this again. At the very beginning, it was pretty invested my intention and very beginning was kind of investigative, but really quickly I think I just realized because one was under strict lockdown is really hard to move physically within the city. And secondly, you know, I couldn't, it's not, I could not get anything more than what's already been covered by news media at that time. And I think, yeah, so when, but later on I think what really changed my point of view on this, and also a lot of Chinese people's point of view on China's management or initial management of the outbreak was how witnessing how other countries most other developed democracies failed in their respective response. So I think that got a lot of us thinking, and through this it's like, you know, why all political system failed in its initial response dealing with some unknown. And that's one thing. Secondly, I started reading a lot about past pandemics. It just feels like in any time there's a pen, you know, Spanish flu AIDS pandemic and also the Black Death. Every single time we are knee jerk reaction is to skate scapegoat someone because we want to blame other people for our own failures. And, and one thing that really made me think a lot. It was the book about AIDS pandemic and the bands and the band played on. That was a great book. It's basically tracing how the whole society, not just the Reagan administration failed in effective control, controlling AIDS at the very beginning. So all of that plays into my thinking is that right now, first of all, it's too early to draw any conclusive conclusions about who did right or wrong. And then we need to have more data. It's just as what WTO is trying to do right now go into China to find data. So it's too early to, for me as a storyteller as a filmmaker to draw that. And at the same time, I'm, I'm feeling like this COVID pandemic has become too number driven about statistics and also political, not just geopolitical on the international stage, but also domestically, it's become way too political. I think, you know, a lot of we, we tend to forget the individual human stories, the human sufferings and the human impact. So that's why as a storyteller as a creative team, all of us made decisions like, you know what, let's somebody else is already make a film about the political commentary. Let's just focus on the humanity and the universal humanity in our story. Are there, it's interesting watching the film now one year into this sort of being plunged back into those early days where we didn't really know what this thing was, and it didn't have a good understanding of it. I'm curious what the benefit of hindsight one year into the pandemic are there things you would have done differently, either in the initial filming, or in the, or in the editing of it how you put it together. I'm really proud of what we've done with this film because we, we had a lot of footage we have over 300 hours of footage, but at the same time, a lot of the footage was being spread out over many different characters. So it's really hard to for us to use. So, so looking back, I don't know, I just feel like in terms of filming obviously if I had no how chaotic the situation would be, I would, you know, have a much better discussion in terms of if we had had a planning process to urge them to, you know, to focus on certain characters more. But looking back, I think, I think, I think my, my personal takeaway, looking back at what happened during the lockdown was was the realizations that, you know, my, because at the very beginning of the lockdown, I, together with many other Chinese we were criticized as in the government's response, to be honest, is that too drastic. You know, you announced that there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of human sacrifice during the lockdown because we were trying to get in touch with people who were, who will come, you know, like patients, right, they couldn't even get their doing because of the lockdown, especially not getting, getting the AIDS medication and their cancer patients who could not get their chemo, so their cancer spread. So there are many, many sad stories because of the lockdown. So in the beginning, when, even when we were doing production of the film, I wanted to capture those stories because I thought that what the government did was wrong in many ways. But now looking back, so I have so many other questions I don't have clear answers to is that maybe this type of really almost draconian measures, what's how China could emerge really quickly out of this. Yeah, so I just feel like looking back, it just, I still have, you know, many, many questions and still continue to think about those questions. Did you know going in or know from early on which, who are going to be the main characters in the film. I guess you focused on on the head nurse young Lee and on Tian from Shanghai, and, you know, the couple with the baby I mean did, did you know early on that those are sort of threads you're going to follow through the film or did that emerge more organically. Definitely emerge more organically, I think of the end production, I think the only one we know for sure is old grandpa because he always wanders in the hallway. So my co-director was always have to help to, you know, guide him back into his sick room so he had a lot of interaction with him, he film a lot of them. We have enough footage with the others and when the footage was coming in, we had no idea out of the, you know, dozens and dozens of characters who might be the main characters. And then as we, I think it's like almost in like in mid March, like almost approaching the end of the lockdown at that stage, when I suddenly realized, wait, wait, wait, let's go back, you know, to follow because my co-director followed not just one couple who were dealing with baby characters, obviously there are other couples as well for their new story. But then, you know, I just said, can you go back and to find one of them, one of the couple to really follow to see how they can reunite with the baby. And with Yang Li, it's actually, we didn't know she could be a main character until we know she was determined to return the personal effects to the family when she started cleaning them all over again after the initial, the initial scene where we saw her. So, so I think approaching the end, I did tell my co-director encourage them to really to follow too, but that's already like in the process almost approaching the end of the production where we're scratching our heads is like, who can be our main character? How can we build a story around characters? Right. I just want to encourage the audience to, if you have questions for how, feel free, I can pass those along from him and I'll take one from the audience now, which is, you know, having had experience about Chinese and US culture, how do you think this film might have been different if you had made a companion film with the same methods in a New York hospital at the, at the height of the pandemic? Oh, God, I tried. I mean, for a while, I thought we could make a film about a tale of two cities, because I was in New York when the pandemic hit, exactly the same story, you know, that the early shortage of PPEs, overwhelmed hospitals and volunteers and trying to help those people lock inside their apartments. So I filmed, I went out on the street and filmed in New York. I tried to gain access to the hospitals, but I think in some bizarre, ironic way, it's almost, you know, even more difficult to gain access to the hospital in New York as compared to Wuhan. But I did know like two filming teams were filming inside a hospital because they were doing some other unrelated project prior to COVID started. And I also know one of the filmmaker who watched 76 days, he said, that's exactly how he's making that film in New York City because he found in 76 is so much common humanity. That's a, that's this also the same sentiment the same, you know, like for him, the same creative impulse as well as we as he was trying to capture, like the human stories on the front line as people were dying in New York. Right. So it's, it's got it's got to come out this year. I have an advice question, but it seems that you were able to turn your isolation into a positive by making this film. Do you have any advice for how people can create good work. When everything is so difficult right now in our current state of isolation. I don't know whether I can give any advice because right now I'm stuck in New York I want to start a new project I cannot travel. If, if anything this film really taught me to collaborate right to work with to find collaborators that that was creative style and vision I think with yours and try to work together. And that's the only advice I mean I feel so extremely fortunate I was able to work on this film. Because there's so much happening, not just COVID Black Lives Matter, Trump administration. It just feel like the world, the world was in chaos and working on this film, almost like therapy for me every day I can, I can continue to be able to focus on something. So, yeah, but right now I'm once again, I'm struggling with having to find something to to to latch on to to. But, but then, yeah, the only thing is to collaborate collaborate and to find something you truly truly believe it, because in these chaotic time is so is so easy to get distracted but then work on something that moves you daily. Like for me when I was editing the film, literally I was crying every day. When I was working especially the first month when I was putting the film together. Yeah, have you been able to share the film with with the nurses with the with the people who you filmed. My co-director have been able to share with some of them because other people is once they're released in the hospital not you know it's not easy to keep track of everything but definitely the nurses, because you know that the main characters. I'm curious what if you've gotten any interesting reactions from them of seeing that that experience that they had portrayed on film this way. For, for example, like the nurse who rushed down the hallway crying Papa in the beginning. It's still hard for her. She's just still trying to, she's still recovering from the trauma. I think she watched a part of the film. It's really helpful for her to watch the entire film. And for the other two, they feel really proud. Yang Li and the Ken there were it this film almost like it's almost like a personal, you know, record right of their experience in Wuhan. Yeah, a lot of a lot of the medical workers were really appreciative of the of them being actually being captured, the working captured on video. You said that this film is a departure from previous ones that you've made. What do you think was the biggest learning obstacle you had in in doing a new kind of project like this. I think every project, every project can be a big challenge right, even if even use the same style but with this one with my past work I've done more traditional documentary. And then sci fi black marriage with a lot of animation graphics in keepers of public desire, very personal film all in my family and with this one. It's really going back to the root of documentary filmmaking which is pure traditional variety. And it was a big challenge, obviously to figure out how to how to do this, but it's also so much fun to be able to try something, try something different to know that I don't have to explain explain everything for documentary you don't have to explain everything to the viewers, and you can just take viewers on the journey, and for viewers to experience things to feel things, and later on if they're curious to search online and find out more background information about the lockdown about what the government did right or wrong. We've talked a little bit about the challenges of getting this access but I'm also just curious of the logistics of filming in that I mean the film shows the procedures that the doctors and nurses have to go through for hygiene and wearing the big suits and keeping themselves safe. You know what just sort of, you know, operating a camera in that environment. What are some of the challenges your collaborators faced. I mean, it was a physically very demanding filming environment because my collaborator they have to down the multiple layers of PPEs and goggles and everything. And so, and also they have to tip up right all the openings so basically it's really hard to breathe and just like in the film a lot of times you see medical work to have to sit down on the benches or even lie down to catch their breath that's the same thing happened to my collaborator. And in the very beginning there's also immense fear about catching the virus so they're really scared operating inside the contamination zone. And, but later on I think the bigger challenge is actually their mental anguish, the trauma of watching people are really like deteriorating in front of the eyes and dying in front of the eyes. And at the same time feeling extremely helpless, you know, that they're filming. I mean, both collaborator co-directors have said multiple times to me they wish they could be like the nurses actually to help someone, but then they could only be behind the camera. So, yeah, so I mean, all I could do is really to sometimes encourage them to take a day off. And but also I also encourage them to tell them what they were doing has meaning. So, because they're documenting history. And, and so, so that part is already challenging and also the way we collaborate was because they couldn't take the machines the camera they were using very small camera first of all they cannot use big cameras in those rooms. And they would take their disk out every day because of this, you know, every day to upload it onto the cloud and then I would download it. So thank goodness they were not shooting 4k, they only shooting HD, if they're shooting 4k, then it's going to be almost impossible. It's going to take me weeks to download the rushes on a daily basis. I mean, you'd really got some shockingly painful and personal moments for some of these patients committed to film. I mean, starting from the very first scene of the movie, which is one of the more wrenching scenes you captured. I'm curious how you thought about that. I mean, the, the sort of importance of getting of sort of depicting how painful this experience was versus sort of, you know, respecting the privacy and the boundaries of some of the people who you were filming. Absolutely. I think, first of all, because my collaborators couldn't bring in pen and paper inside the Contamination Zone, we couldn't ask people to sign official, like, go to the more formal release. And what we did was getting people to verbally agree for everybody who, who, who they talk to, who talk, who had this who speak, who talk in front of our camera to get our consent. And with regard to some of the other patients who are, you know, who basically unconscious, I think we went through a lot of debate around ethical issues about depicting that. And I think in the end, we definitely tried to be as far or filming and go at least the, the, the, you know, the breathing tubes or the inhibitors at least blocking partially their face or, and, and we film at a distance to show respect. But at the same time, we kind of don't want to look away from this. In some ways, I know it's a very cliche expression that in some ways, at least for my co-directors, they film, they felt they were inside a war zone. And then we just want to show the brutality, and especially in the beginning of this, we didn't really, we didn't want the camera to look away. And we kind of, we kind of want to remind viewers of this. I think part of the reason, maybe I don't know how big a reason that a big part of United States still refused to believe that COVID-19 will. I don't know whether it has anything to do with the lack of visual evidence of the horror in, you know, in our media or not. But at least in China, everybody took this very seriously, obviously, because China has been hit with flu-like outbreaks so many times, including SARS before. And secondly, it was once the government decided to take it seriously, there's nonstop, you know, news coverage of inside of hospitals and stuff like that. So I think people got it. So for us, it's like how to find the balance of respecting people and at the same time to do accurate documentation, also portrayal of what's truly happening on the front line. There were a couple of great little, I guess you would say cultural touches that I only sort of picked up on partly once the nurses writing the foods they like on their PPE. I guess I only figured out partway through the film that Tian, one of the main nurses you followed, like came in from Shanghai that he was sort of a outsider and Wuhan. I'm curious that there are other things that nuances that you think non-Chinese or non-Chinese speaking viewers might have missed that you might want to draw people's attention to either before or after they watch the film. Yeah, I think the only thing viewers, it will help the viewers to realize that everybody actually had their names written on their back. But then we decided to only ID to call out the names of two nurses because those are our main characters. So for me for any Chinese viewer, they would be able to tell to track much easier for them to track characters from scene to scene. But for the for non-Chinese character, it become almost impossible, but also we don't want to ID people just because they have a name written on the back. If that character only appears once, it could be very distracting to the viewers. So other than that, I feel like this film intentionally, we definitely would love some touches, some detail, specific detail about this story being happening in Wuhan and this is happening in China there. But other places, we kind of thought it doesn't matter whether people pick up the cultural, specific cultural details or not because we really want to showcase the universal, universality of at least the story we've captured on our cameras and to show that aspect. So that's why we didn't intentionally call anything and that viewers might miss about this. I mean, there are some specific details, for example, the fact that can arrive from Shanghai and he wasn't local. And we, you know, let viewers know like almost approaching the end of the film, we didn't reveal that at the beginning. And also, you know, like a lot of the people, there's a lot of misunderstandings because a lot of the people arriving from outside of Wuhan couldn't understand the local dialogue. So I guess for viewers, you could still pick them out, but then I guess for some other viewers, they might miss it, they might get really confused. But I think with this film, we decided not to make a big deal out of it because there's just so much, so much twists and turns during the lockdown. And we just don't want to call out too many details that might distract people from, you know, get understanding the emotional journey in the story. Yeah, I mean, for viewers who haven't seen it, I mean, one of the very distinct visual aspects of this film is, you know, not only are the main characters wearing masks, but they're wearing, you know, full body suit. And so you really can't see people's faces are identifying marks at all. It's really remarkable how you do in the end have sort of distinct characters you're following despite the fact that you can't really see what anyone looks like through, you know, 90% of the film. And a related question to that from an audience member is, you talked about the film trying to depict the kind of universal humanity, whereas most Chinese audiences might see this as depicting a specifically Chinese context. So is that something you think about, ie how do you avoid falling into the trap of getting accused of Western bias, as you mentioned from social media trolls. Or is that something that you're not really worried about is that you're not sees sort of crucial to your documentary practice. That's something I'm increasingly, I've increasingly paying less and less attention to, because I feel like as a storyteller. I think I need to pay more attention to my crafts to how I can tell the story better to how to move my audience more, rather than think too much about how am I positioning this film with I'm presenting the Chinese audience or Western audience. Because I just feel, I mean, obviously, every filmmaker is a storyteller has a different take on this, my personal take is that, you know, the, the less you, you make the story specific about one place the more universal you can be. And that's my hope, you know, with my body work and limited body work. You can see with my later films I talk about China, trying to explain the context less and less I just want people to focus on the human story. And obviously 76 days is still very much Chinese story right very Chinese the relationship the patients and the medical worker have a very Chinese the aunties and grandma. The easiness to have this kind of surrogate family type like relationship. That's very Chinese and also the sound talking to the father like your communist party member can you just hold yourself put put yourself together and act like a party member right be a model for other people. These are very Chinese but then there are certain things that's deeper that's about how humans wanting to connect with each other, how humans willing to help each other making decisions. That's also universal. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you about that that's one thing. Being an American watching the film is very striking is the relationship between the nurses and the patients it's both there. They're willing to be like a lot more stern with the patients and almost yelling at them and. But also, as you mentioned that this kind of a kind of warmth, calling the Monty and grandma, you know, a lot about sharing food and I'm curious is that almost like family. Both the positive and negative relationships of aspects of family relationships is that sort of typical of a of Chinese medical culture or is that something that like developed during covid specifically. I think it's more specific to covid and or let's put it that way during times of crisis. I think the doing normal time pre covid there's actually increasing tension between the healthcare industry in China and the patient population because it's become really expensive to get healthcare in China and the patient and also because the system is so strange. I had very limited resources. So a lot of patients are complaining to pay a lot of money and not getting quality care. And then there has been increasing instances of violence, violence is targeted at medical workers in China. But with covid I guess it's different. And for a couple different for a number of reasons. One is I do feel like in times of crisis, we do step up like in China that happened doing every time there's a flood or every time there's an earthquake in 2008. So I think other people are willing to step up. And the second thing is the government pay for everything. Nobody is paying anybody to get treated anywhere. Everything's been paid for. So the patients have no reason for complaints. And also they are they even though that they are being kind of forced quarantine inside hospitals or hotels or quarantine centers, but at least because in the early days of the panic they are really appreciative they could get away from their family so they don't affect their friends and relatives right. So that's another thing. And yeah, I think for these different reasons I think this is it's kind of came as almost like a surprise to me as well because I took my parents to hospitals in China, even in Shanghai it was really challenging dealing with overworked medical workers. But in this film you know it's just like the human emotion come out so beautiful. Right. The question about your background I mean we touched about your career before transitioning to filmmaking. You think your background of the studying science or working in technology has influenced your style as a filmmaker. Yeah, I don't know. I wish I could have started doing this a lot sooner. But I think all my life experience more professional experience did help shape my work views and how I approach an issue for example, like, I don't believe in easy answers. Because I studied science where science are always asking questions and, you know, and, and doubt. I have the tendency to doubt any easy answers. But first of all, so I always want to see the other side and to see the complexity in things. And yeah, I think in all my films, even though at the beginning of making 76 days I thought I'm making and I pick a very newsy topic this time, which is a big departure from my past film. And then, you know, it came down to the human beings. Right. The, you know, my, and also I intentionally move away from some of their sort of easy approach to looking at this issue to go back to the human beings, the human stories to, to try to encourage people to think about the complexity of the lockdown rather than say, Oh, they did a great job. Oh, they did a horrible job. And the last kind of broad question. What do you think is going to be the lasting impact of this pandemic on China and you can take that either. You know, in terms of society, how people relate to each other or politically, let you take that. That's such a big, big, I'm not a commentator. And I don't think I'm equipped to comment directly on that. I just have a couple worries, right. Obviously, one worry is, no matter how horrible the catastrophe is, we human being not just in China here as well, we tend to forget it. We tend to forget any lesson we can draw from, from that. And yeah, so that's what happened after SARS. That's what happened after the Spanish flu, right after a few couple years after that we had to go go 20s. Everybody was just partying and making money. And I don't know I'm more worried about we forget about this we don't learn enough from this because another pandemic definitely coming. It's definitely coming just because global warming and also human activities in quotes in coaching on wildlife habitat that's definitely gonna come back so I don't know whether we can learn a big lesson after this to learn to work with each other to really not just China, not just us, not just China, every country trying to learn from each other's best practices and sit down and use this as a common interest to have a dialogue. And that's the thing I worry about most, because it's so easy to go back to say you did this one you did that wrong, my system superior, or your system is draconian is made. But then, you know, I don't, I'm not saying those conversations are not worth while having that absolutely legitimate topic to discuss. And let's not forget, we do have several common enemy, not just the pandemic also global warming as well, how we can work together. That's, that's the thing that worries me the most. And a few people had a more specific question about where they can watch the film if they weren't able to before the event. And the first part of that I know is which they have a link in their new America RSVP email which will work until midnight tonight but afterwards where where can people see this remarkable film. They can go to our official website 76 days film.com and we have informations about how to watch the film on the website. I mean right now was you doing a virtual cinema screenings throughout the country so you can pick any virtual cinema you wanted to support and basically rent a movie from that cinema. Well fantastic well I want to thank how again for joining us today and if you haven't already watched the movie before this event I really urge you to. It's a it's a really unique portrait of a historic moment and the kind we very rarely get to see. And so congratulations how and look forward to talking to you again soon. Yeah, thank you Josh. Great talking to you. Thank you.