Lockdown Generation

The COVID crisis triggered a real war against the virus. Civilian or military, medical, paramedical or logistical personnel all joined forces to try to deal with it. At the Hôpital d'Instructions des Armées in Percy, in the south of Paris, this real tour de force is both human and technical. On every floor, the staff was confronted with this crisis situation requiring cohesion, adaptation, commitment, immediate decisions, unprecedented actions... with a common objective: to unite to save lives. What has this crisis changed in their profession?

An inside look at the creation of Universal Orlando Resort's new Jurassic World VelociCoaster.

Filmmaker/activist Melaw Nakehk’o has spent the pandemic with her family at a remote land camp in the Northwest Territories, “getting wood, listening to the wind, staying warm and dry, and watching the sun move across the sky.” In documenting camp life—activities like making fish leather and scraping moose hide—she anchors the COVID experience in a specific time and place.

Thursday shot from filmmaker Galen Johnson's high-rise apartment during COVID-19 “lockdown” in Winnipeg, captures people going about their daily routines in the city's eerily empty streets, yards and parking lots, on their balconies and on the riverbanks. The extreme distance and the diminutive scale of humans is paired with sound close-ups—a combination that embodies the strange, heightened intensity of feeling of the time, knowing an era-defining tragedy is happening yet being so physically removed.

NÓS: ANIMAIS NA PANDEMIA

As the first city hit in the global pandemic, Wuhan, with a population of 11 million, was placed under an unprecedented lockdown. The film showcases the incredible speed and power of China’s state machinery in its fight against the virus. On the other side of the scale is the crushing bureaucracy of that same machine.

In the first few months of 2020, huge swathes of Northern Italy were hit by a new virus. The town of Bergamo and its province was to become the epicentre of this pandemic.

This documentary puts a spotlight on the White House’s failed response to the global pandemic and how it could have been prevented. Featuring damning testimony from public health officials and hard investigative reporting, director Alex Gibney reveals a system-wide collapse caused by a profound dereliction of presidential leadership.

Chef en pandémie

An elementary school in Japan begins an experimental program that frames the students' curriculum around one single project: the raising of a calf from adolescence to adulthood. Through their work with the calf, the students learn about math, biology, nutrition and numerous other subjects. But after multiple years of investing energy and emotion into their beloved pet, the students begin to realize that the final days of their project may provide them with the hardest and most important lesson of all.

10 Letters to the Future is a documentary film that is a mid-term review in a world of intertwined crises. It is a puzzle, a kaleidoscope that enables a multi-voiced debate in society. The collectively made film was conceived in the era of the Coronavirus, when the reality of global anomalies pierced everything we took for granted. It was a time that caused many to reassess their lives in a new light. What happened to us and what kind of future do we want to be heading towards? Virus researcher, climate activist, political scientist and anti-vaccine protesters see the future challenges facing our society in a very different light. As the virus takes over the world, schoolchildren start collecting letters to be encapsulated in a wooden coffin built by students to be opened more than 50 years from now. The main characters in the documentary write their letters, addressing their loved ones or something unknown in the future.

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

If We Knew is a documentary about paediatricians in an intensive-care unit for newborns. A film about the compassion needed to heal the sick and occasionally needed to hasten the death of a child.

Filmed entirely inside the world of virtual reality (VR), this immersive and revealing documentary roots itself in several unique communities within VR Chat, a burgeoning virtual reality platform. Through observational scenes captured in real-time, in true documentary style, the film reveals the growing power and intimacy of several relationships formed in the virtual world, many of which began during the COVID-19 lockdown, while so many in the physical world were facing intense isolation.

In 2021, Australia (particularly the eastern states) was hit with a wave of COVID-19 cases that heavily affected many families, causing whole states to go into lockdown. This short documentary highlights the impact lockdowns have on any family throughout Australia.

The painful personal stories of five Palestinian kids, ages 7-17, open a window into the world of Palestinian minors under Israeli occupation - trapped within the violence, humiliation, and daily confrontations with soldiers and settlers - while remaining children in every way. Each child finds his or her own way to cope and to construct emotional and political worlds in an impossible situation.

A capsule romance accelerates dramatically against the backdrop of the pandemic as two filmmakers are forced to move in together after two weeks of knowing each other.

A documentary taking its cues from children's imaginative flights of fancy.

Although the past two years have been challenging for the Theatre industry, they also showed its incredible strength and resilience. Through interviews with West End performers and creatives, this documentary outlines the difficulties presented to our industry over the course of the pandemic, as well as highlighting changes - both positive and negative - that have come from it. An emotional reflection on a battle it was worth fighting for. All profits will be going to 'Acting for Others', an organisation that provides support to all theatre workers through 14 member charities. We hope these stories full of passion for Theatre inspire you just as much as they inspired us!

Filmed at Benning's home in Val Verde during the first month of the pandemic, the film is a portrait of that time.