In the Same Breath

Synopsis

Director:
Nanfu Wang
99 min, US, 2021

In her third visit to Doc10 (after award-winners Hooligan Sparrow and One Child Nation), indomitable filmmaker Nanfu Wang has made another piercing story of political and emotional weight, and perhaps the most important documentary of the year. In tracing the spread of the pandemic from the earliest days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the U.S., Wang investigates the troubling campaigns of misinformation and propaganda in both China and Trump’s America, while also bearing her own and others’ intimate stories of fear, devastation, and resilience. In doing so, she ultimately reveals one of the destructive casualties of the pandemic: truth. “Shocking and heartrending” (The Guardian) and “a chilling, truly absorbing film” (Vox), In the Same Breath is “a must-see for its expansive, heartfelt perspective on this worldwide catastrophe” (RogerEbert.com).