Superspreader

Humor helps people through hard times. A look at the viral videos, songs and sketches that have filled the Internet worldwide since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and what this lockdown humor says about humans in distress.

As the first part of our investigation, the CORONA.FILM prologue will delve into the science behind the pandemic. Starting at the very beginning, we shine a light on the responses. The aim is not to point the finger; our aim is to tell the whole story in all its complexity, as we believe that justice cannot prevail if only one side of the story is told.

Never-before-seen footage shows how our living in lockdown opened the door for nature to bounce back and thrive. Across the seas, skies, and lands, Earth found its rhythm when we came to a stop.

When Covid-19 hit New York City in 2020, filmmaker Matthew Heineman gained unique access to one of New York’s hardest-hit hospital systems. The resulting film focuses on the doctors, nurses, and patients on the frontlines during the “first wave” from March to June 2020. Their distinct storylines each serve as a microcosm to understand how the city persevered through the worst pandemic in a century

A short documentary that tells the story of queer artist Heather Spooner and the adult pen pal program she created during the pandemic, featuring the poignant and humorous stories of connection and humanity that came from it.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 WNBA season pivoted into a bubble site in Bradenton, Florida – where 144 players across 12 teams convened to face the rigors of an unrelenting schedule and finish their battle for a championship; all while just as dedicated to amplify social activism in response to the injustices that gripped that same summer. A documentary from ESPN Films.

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Peels back the curtain on the two-week, claustrophobic nightmare when passengers and crew members boarded the luxury Diamond Princess cruise ship in January of 2020, they had no idea that the deadly novel coronavirus boarded the ship with them, turning the floating paradise into their worst nightmare.

In a time when the world needs greater cross-cultural understanding, WUHAN WUHAN is an invaluable depiction of a metropolis joining together to overcome a crisis.

The series tells the story of the São Paulo International Film Festival, one of the most traditional cultural events in Latin America. For 48 years, the festival has showcased hundreds of films from all over the world, bringing vibrancy to the city. Filmmaker Marina Person provides an irreverent perspective, highlighting the exciting and unusual stories that have marked the festival’s journey of resistance. The series reveals the individuals who have embraced the challenge of organizing this significant cultural event in Brazil every year, despite often challenging conditions. We also delves into how the Mostra has grown to become one of the main festivals globally, shedding light on the changes in cinema, Brazil, and the world over the years.

Shots puts an amusing spin on the little-known history of eugenics. It traces the genocidal, anti-ethnic eugenics movement which resulted in the sterilization and elimination of millions. It exposes how the wealthiest families financed the evolution of eugenics into Nazi Germany, and pushed America into perpetual wars. These families further influenced the government's elimination of financial liability for vaccine manufacturers while simulating run-ups to the 2020 pandemic. By that year the wealthiest had bought and controlled the media, and censored medical experts that criticized government actions. Shots illuminates how the government censored effective therapeutics, financially incentivized hospitals to adopt misleading reporting practices and deadly treatments, doubled global deaths with lockdowns, bankrupted small businesses, and allowed the most unsafe vaccines in a century.

Featuring seven stories from seven auteurs from around the world, the film chronicles this unprecedented moment in time, and is a true love letter to the power of cinema and its storytellers.

The documentary dives intimately behind the scenes of the Finnish National Opera and sucks the viewer in like the best of thrillers. The three hours fly by, even for those who aren’t necessarily interested in opera as an art form.

A child who just loved to skate from the age of eight, Poppy Starr Olsen became the number one female bowl skater in Australia at 14 and went on to take out bronze at the XGames at 17 - the ultimate competition in the world of skateboarding. The same year, skateboarding was announced as an official additional sport category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now faced with the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage Poppy grapples with the transition from skater to athlete and the pressure of competition mounts in a way it has never done before.

The pandemic has many faces. It has affected everyone across the world, but each of us in a different way. A collection of individual fates observed in fine detail. And a filmic world tour that looks down on places of residence from above and yet gets very close to the people.

Millions of people forced into solitude for months, struggling with the anxiety, loneliness, and fear of losing everything they have.

A nine-year-old Syrian refugee girl contemplates her increasingly bleak future after being forced to drop out of school in the midst of Lebanon’s unprecedented economic collapse and battle with Covid-19.

It’s spring in the Ecuadorian Amazon and the Uyantza festival is underway with the community celebrating all that the forest has to offer. Meanwhile, news is breaking around the world that a novel virus is spreading and a state of emergency is declared across the country. As people test positive for COVID-19 in the community, some families decide to leave and head deeper into the jungle. Disconnected from school, friends, the internet, and work, one family learns to reconnect with life in the forest. The children begin to unlearn the national curriculum, and instead are taught Indigenous knowledge that mainstream schools normally pass over. As COVID-19 wreaks havoc around the planet, the family reconnect to their ancestral ways, but as news arrives that Ecuador’s lockdown will end soon, will the family choose to return?

Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.

A video essay by Mark Rappaport, which spans René Magritte and Michelangelo to Bonnie & Clyde. Let’s mask up to rob a bank! But make sure that you are home before the curfew.