Posted on 08/18/2021 8:17:52 PM PDT by SomeCallMeTim
Wang grew up in Jiangxi Province, a rural farming village 200 miles from Wuhan, before moving to the U.S. nine years ago. In January 2020, working remotely from her home in New Jersey, she assembled a team of field producers, camera operators and subjects on the ground of a heavily censored China to investigate what was going on in hospitals within Wuhan. In doing so, the director was able to reveal the Chinese dictatorship’s attempts to conceal early knowledge of the virus’ deadly potential.
“I was never my intention to make a film about the virus or tracking the pandemic,” Wang says.
Instead the director’s initial vision for the doc, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2021, was to expose the wrongdoings of the Chinese government’s initial response to the coronavirus.
“I knew it was a political film,” Wang explains. “The virus exposed the issues that already existed (within the Chinese government) and those issues are compounded by COVID.”
But by April 2020, “In the Same Breath” shifted to become a doc about how not only China, but also the United States used the pandemic as a political propaganda tool.
This is a bible quote: John 8:32.
It was engraved on the front of the Main Admin building at my University.
To this day, the "official" China death toll for COVID is 4,636.
I just watched, on HBO, a new documentary titled "In the Same Breath". It proves , with video from Wuhan, the point I have been saying for more than a year; The COVID death toll, JUST in Wuhan was probably closer to 30,000 to 40,000. Maybe even, many times that. The number across all of China is surely much, much higher. This documentary DESTROYS the myth of China's CCP success over Covid.
This film, the "TRUTH", is devasting to the CCP. They will work very hard to keep anyone in China from seeing it. But they will fail. Censorship is harder today than anytime in human history. In fact, it is IMPOSSIBLE. The "truth" cannot be stopped. And, it might just set 1.4 BILLION people free.
I think this film is going to cause the CCP GREAT problems.
But, of course... their response will be: Invade Taiwan. Why not? The US won't do anything. Self-survival is far more important.
This is an important, powerful film. You will be hearing about it.
Our world, is about to get FAR more complicated.
We should have never tried to have “friendly relations” with communists, be it China, Russia, Cuba, N. Korea etc. Our policy with communist countries should always be that we want to destroy them in every way possible, for the sake of their enslaved people.
Pei-Ping.
You’re probably right. Doing business with them has only helped them, and compromised us.
To be clear, this film exposes much about the inadequacies of the the American Covid response. But, it will be showing.. on HBO.. in homes all across America, starting tonight.
Early on, in this pandemic, the communist system had certain advantages. But, in the long run, I believe our system will win out. Our system can be chaotic. But, eventually TRUTH wins out.
The question is: Can we KEEP our system?
Exactly, it’s enabling. It’s getting the blacked out drunk cleaned up and in his pj’s in bed so he can continue to pretend he’s functioning. If you truly believe communism doesn’t work, then give it the chance to fail without being propped up, and only then can real progress begin to be made.
“Can’t stop The Signal, Mal”
If it is showing at Sundance and on HBO it is not signal, just noise.
True.
The "can't stop The Signal" reference is to the movie Serenity.
I watched most of it last night, and it was very good—shocking for HBO actually.
It showed how both the Chinese and US governments lied to their citizens—over and over and over again...and it was _not_ an anti-Trump hit piece. It was an anti-Xi and anti_Fauci hit piece—the elites vs the average citizen.
I had to mute the promotions for their upcoming pervert “family” specials...
;-)
Good catch. I’m pinging my movie list.
For the movie & popcorn file: this film premiered at Sundance and is now on HBO. I had overlooked this one, mainly because I tend not to pay much attention to documentaries. It’s currently at 96% on RT.
The director is Chinese-American. She was back in China with a two year old son visiting her mother when the pandemic started and she got tangled up a bit in the early international lockdown dance. She is ok, but her film is apparently scathing on the Chinese government and she has dug deep for an expose that is now getting excellent reviews and some viewer attention. Whether HBO is promoting it heavily, I don’t know. Nor do I know if it’s being picked up more widely.
I’ve not seen it yet. Whether she’s fair dealing with the U.S. response, I don’t know. Nor do I know if she adequately parses the responses from other developed countries outside of China. With 20/20 hindsight, of course, the leadership of much of the world looks lacking, as governments tried to deal with great unknowns in a panicky, media driven environment. It would be easy to cherry pick examples to sandbag a target.
So again, whether this film is fair, I don’t know; I’m sure some will respond mainly on how it treats Trump. That may be a touchy subject here. In general, IMHO, Trump was ahead of the media and the dems, but the U.S. response was clearly affected by the anti-Trump crowd that reflexively opposed anything The Donald said or did. Trump could have handled some things better — let’s remember, he was Fauci’s and the CDC’s boss until January 20 — but the anti-Trump hysteria was a crippling factor. That’s a very complicated story. Does this film get it right? Watch it and see. But SomeCallMeTim recommends it as a good look at China in the early days, which is enough of a recommendation for me to take a close look.
That’s what I liked about Trump. He wasn’t trying to be friends. Just friendly as long as you respected the USA and had fair trade. Leave us alone and we leave you alone. Beef up our military.
Thanks for the ping.
“If it is showing at Sundance and on HBO it is not signal, just noise.”
The AT&T/Time Warner fiasco will live forever in business school case studies of management arrogance and incompetence. They took one of the deepest film catalogues in existence and an iconic brand (HBO) and turned it into HBO Max, which is still where movies go to not be seen. How much the proposed spinoff can salvage remains to be seen. I get all that.
But what’s your critique of Sundance? It is what it is. There’s nothing wrong with being a mecca for indies. That’s a perfectly respectable niche. Let the spandex warriors and franchise sequels, prequels and spinoffs go somewhere else.
I have no problem with indies.
I do have a problem with liberals and that seems to be what Sundance is.
The moment they say that it won acclaim at Sundance you can generally safely say it is a commie propaganda screed with no interesting features.
Of course if they pan it, you might want to check it out.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about that. The entire film industry leans heavily left. If we dismiss the festivals because there are too many liberals floating around, we simply tune all of them out. But if we do that, what are we left with?
Glad you asked: Comcast (Universal and many smaller brands), ViacomCBS (Paramount and other brands), AT&T (WarnerMedia, HBO and many other brands), Disney (Disney, 20th Century Studios and others), Sony (also Columbia and TriStar), Netflix, Amazon, etc. All of which seem embarrassed to be American, are totally subservient to the woke twitter mob, and see China as the future. The entire film industry is becoming highly concentrated and the streamers are rapidly swallowing everything else. A handful of global companies — not a one of them with anything recognizable as an old-fashioned, America-centric mindset — are becoming the gatekeepers. That way lies the Borg.
The festivals aren’t perfect. I’m sure those in charge lean left. But they are part of the ecosystem that allows small, independent and “subversive” filmmakers to find a platform and perhaps win some traction. And in today’s climate, “subversive” includes films with a conservative, Christian, or patriotic U.S. heritage point of view. The festivals can be a launching pad. Even if the small independent films are ultimately purchased by the Borg for distribution — where they disappear into deep, deep film catalogues (like the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie) — the festivals allow them to generate some buzz and get noticed enough to get into the discussion, get widely reviewed, and go on watchlists before they disappear without notice as generic “content” to fill 24/7/365 streaming platforms.
IOW, I’m worried about the vertical and horizontal integration of the whole industry. The festivals still function as an alternative distribution platform. As the streamers become the Borg, I think the festivals are more, not less, important. They may be inhabited mostly by liberals, but at least they ain’t the Borg. They aren’t run by people who are in the business of selling subscriptions to a lowest common denominator global audience. They’re run by people, mostly, who are passionate about cinema and aspire to celebrate films as art. They don’t always succeed — great films are rare — but they’re willing to take chances and go against the grain. The streamers want to be content WalMarts to the world.
Before you write off Sundance, here are some recent Sundance films. They’re not all entirely to my taste; A24, for example, tends to be a bit weird for me. But a couple of these were made on a shoestring (Columbus was made for $700,000; A Ghost Story cost $100,000, including probably ten bucks for the sheets) and they’re all worth considering before you write off the ecosystem that allows them to rise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15syDwC000k&t=8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3dcnV6Z9Zs&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_07ktacEGo8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsVoD0pTge0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_3NMtxeyfk
How many get that reference?
The film does talk a little about the beginning of Covid in the US, and takes a couple of shots at Trump and his supporters. But, it also gives them a little credit about wanting TRUTH from our government. It also makes a pretty strong case that the right to protest is a good thing.
It’s harsh on Fauci.
But, throughout the movie, the main focus is on the CCP and showing the methods they use to brainwash and control the population.
And, she does a great job of destroying the “official” covid death statistics in China. She didn’t give a direct number, but made a strong case for a death count north of 200-300k just in Wuhan.
too bad it was released on HBO. Netflix would have gotten it to a larger audience
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