[The network says it will release
the film. No one knows how China, a giant entertainment market, will respond.]
They didn’t. Instead, they banned
social-media posts about the virus, stopped symptomatic people from entering
hospitals, punished doctors who spoke of the risks and unleashed a stream of
state-TV propaganda downplaying its severity.
That’s the narrative constructed by
“In The Same Breath,” a scathing new documentary by the Oscar-shortlisted
filmmaker Nanfu
Wang. Wang’s movie, which has been viewed by The Washington Post,
argues that the alleged suppression led to an untold number of deaths and the
virus spreading rapidly, as unaware people kept taking risks.
In a surprising turn, the movie has
been financed and creatively overseen by HBO. It will be aired by the Warner Media
subsidiary on an as-yet undetermined date later this year, an uncommon decision
by a media conglomerate to take on the government of the world’s largest
entertainment market.
Experts say the risks to the
company, which makes content available on Chinese platforms and distributes
some of its biggest blockbusters in the country, could be sizable.
“Look at what happened to the NBA
when [then-Houston Rockets general manager] Daryl Morey made his comment on
Twitter about Hong Kong — games were taken off all platforms and you couldn’t
buy Rockets merchandise online anywhere in China,” said Marc Ganis, the founder
of the Asia-oriented company Jiaflix and an expert on the entertainment
business in China.
[China
lashes out at Western businesses as it tries to cut support for Hong Kong
protests]
The documentary will premiere at
the virtual Sundance Film Festival Thursday, where it is expected to stir up
much attention as a damning indictment of the leadership of Chinese president
Xi Jinping in the early days of the pandemic.
“We think of the virus as ‘it was
an inevitable disaster and the government responded the best way they could,’”
Wang, who was born 200 miles outside Wuhan and currently resides in New York
City, said in an interview. “And that’s not the reality. No one can make the
calculation of how many lives could have been saved if precautions and warnings
were given on time.”
“Breath” seeks to paint a different
picture of China’s response from the one circulating in some circles in which
China handled the virus well. (Early on, a story in Nature offered "What
China’s coronavirus response can teach the rest of the world” and in the fall
the executive director for the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Mike Ryan, congratulated "the front-line health workers in
China and the population who worked together tirelessly to bring the disease to
this very low level.”)
“Breath" argues that Xi’s
government was eager to sweep away talk of covid during the critical early
period, both with suppression tactics and with propaganda dismissing the
dangers. The film highlights many reports, well into January 2020, stating “no
clear evidence shows human-to-human transmission” — even as victims are dying
in the streets and thousands of people desperately upload their medical
information hoping someone will see it and offer them care.
It was only later — after, Wang
notes, the Communist Party held its annual Lunar New Year meetings and wrung
maximum public-relations benefits from them — that the government began
publicly acknowledging the risks and imposed the famous Wuhan
lockdown.
Ganis noted the NBA is not the only
entertainment entity that has suffered retribution in China. "Ask Sony
Pictures about what happens if the government disapproves of your movie,” he
said, referring to a Chinese outcry in 1997 over the Brad Pitt drama “Seven
Years in Tibet.” Beijing saw the film as so hostile to China it stopped all
dealings with the studio and imposed a visa ban on Pitt that lasted well over a
decade.
The reaction now could depend in
part on how vocal HBO went with its support, Ganis said.
“Are they advertising it heavily?
Are they pushing it for awards?” he asked. “Or are they just quietly putting it
out?”
HBO executives did not comment for
this story. Wang said HBO never suggested any changes for business reasons.
Wang’s film builds on the research
of many journalists, including those of The Post, that implicates China in not
moving quickly enough, offering ground-level visual testimony in a country from
which many journalists have been ejected.
Wang, in New York, enlisted a team
of guerrilla filmmakers to shoot subjects in China — a college student’s father
and grandfather who died one day apart, or Runzhen Chen, who with her husband
operated a medical clinic near the wet market at which the virus likely
originated. Chen was unable to get care for her husband in January as one
hospital after another turned him away, denying he was in danger. He died
shortly after.
Though it pointedly criticizes how
U.S. government officials and agencies managed the virus, it reserves some of
its sharpest attacks for China’s free-speech suppression tactics. Eight doctors
are punished for “spreading rumors about an unknown pneumonia” after discussing
the virus in private group texts — a warning repeated by state news anchors for
days. A public-address announcement blares: “A reminder from the police: obey
laws and regulations for online activities" in the streets. A man is taken
to the police station and fingerprinted for a cellphone video of a long line
outside a funeral home.
Studios are often reluctant to
produce material condemning China. Some executives even go out of their way to include positive Chinese story lines in their
products, fearful of being locked out of a market that pours billions into
their coffers.
Many HBO shows are available in
China through HBO’s local site as well native platforms like Tencent. Warner
Media also has plans to expand its new streaming service, HBO Max,
around the world.
And several of its theatrical
blockbusters, such as “Aquaman” and the “Godzilla” titles, perform well in
China; the former grossed $260 million in 2019. Studios need the blessing of
the Chinese government to land a release slot in the country.
HBO’s decision to back the film
stands in contrast to another recent case of a political documentary from an
acclaimed filmmaker, Bryan Fogel’s Jamal Khashoggi movie “The Dissident."
Global streamers passed on the film, possibly because of fears of
economic reprisal from the Saudi government.
[An
alleged Saudi troll campaign is targeting a movie about the murder of Jamal
Khashoggi]
Aynne Kokas, a University of
Virginia professor and author of “Hollywood Made In China,” about their
relationship, said a film’s popularity was a key variable in China’s reaction.
But “if it does go viral I can see possible penalties for other HBO shows and
significant impact for broader Warner Media distribution.”
She said she believed that U.S.
companies take a “calculated risk” when they release films such as “In The Same
Breath.”
“Is it a movie or is it a scene
they’re getting in trouble for?" she said. A simple quip or line may not
be worth the potential payback, she said. An larger investigation might be.
Warner Media is owned by AT&T,
but the telecom’s operations in China, comparatively modest, are less likely to
be affected.
HBO is no stranger to Chinese
retribution: In 2018, the government blocked programming on HBO’s website and banned
mention of host John Oliver on the Weibo social-media platform after the
performer mocked Xi in a segment on his show “Last Week
Tonight.”
Wang, too, has already faced
consequences. Her documentary, “One Child Nation,” which assails the country’s
population-control policy, was shortlisted for the documentary Oscar in 2019.
But Chinese state outlets erased all mentions of the film in their
coverage.
There are signs the government is
looking to crack down on her again, she said. In November security agents
visited her mother’s house in China and questioned her for several hours about
her daughter’s filmmaking activities. And while making the film, Wang had a
different China-based producer taken in for questioning every month from March
to May; each time the producer stopped working on the film shortly after.
Wang said she felt the need to
press on, not only to tell the story of the early days of the pandemic but
because the Chinese government was now co-opting the tragedy to stoke jingoism.
“It was a failure but it’s being
used as an excuse for patriotism,” she said, noting a slew of programming
hailing the country’s anti-virus heroism. “It’s working -- a disaster is
becoming a propaganda tool.”
She alluded to a line from the
movie.
“When the government is telling us
where to look," she said, “they’re also telling us where not to look.”
