Pandemic19: Behind the Scenes with Frontline Doctors

Learn about the making of a timely new documentary that reveals a side of the coronavirus pandemic often unseen by most people.

Pandemic19 is a short documentary film that captures the story of three doctors in the United States fighting COVID-19 from pre-to-post surge, told through their own reflective, humanizing voices, while the chaos of the pandemic spreads outside the frame of their video confessions. Pandemic19  sidesteps the salacious news headlines by focusing on the personal video journals of three doctors as they prepare for the “calm before the storm” and share their direct experiences with COVID-19 patients. As the days unfold, the doctors check-in and record their changing impressions: fears, hopes, challenges, and triumphs—laying bare their unfiltered and subjective feelings.

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Virginia Brady and Pandemic19 directors Yung Chang and Annie Katsure Rollins.

Dr. Virginia Brady is currently faculty at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Originally from New York, Ginny received degrees in neuroscience and classics at Brown University before attending Tufts Medical School. At Tufts both her clinical performance and humanistic skills were recognized through induction into AOA, the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award and the Janet Glascow Memorial Achievement Citation. Brady went on to complete an internal medicine-pediatrics residency at Yale and was named chief resident in 2014–2015. She subsequently completed a pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Yale. Her passion for teaching was recognized through the Fellow of the Year Award at Yale in 2016. Since joining the faculty at BIDMC in 2018, Brady has continued to pursue her passion for medical education. She was quickly named the MICU clerkship and capstone director, as well as director of critical care education, through which she oversees the educational needs of residents, fellows and medical students. She has also been the co-director of the integration track for Harvard Medical Students and completed the Rabkin Fellowship in Medical Education in 2020. Most recently, she has been named the associate program director for the internal medicine residency program. Despite being a Boston transplant and working for the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox, Dr. Brady is a die-hard Yankee fan. 

Yung Chang is the director of Up the Yangtze (2007), China Heavyweight (2012), The Fruit Hunters (2012) and This Is Not a Movie (2019). He is currently completing a screenplay for his first dramatic feature, Eggplant, which was selected to participate in the prestigious Sundance Labs. Chang’s films have premiered at international film festivals, including Sundance, Berlin, Toronto and IDFA, and have played theatrically in cinemas around the world. Up the Yangtze was one of the top-grossing documentary releases in 2008. In 2013, China Heavyweight became the most widely screened social-issue documentary in Chinese history with an official release in 200 Mainland Chinese cinemas. His most recent feature, This Is Not a Movie, world premiered at the Toronto Int’l Film Festival in 2019 and is traveling to cinemas and festivals.  He is a member of the DGC, WGC, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. 

Annie Katsura Rollins is a researcher, artist and educator. Combining a BFA degree in performance from Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA in scenography from the University of Minnesota, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Montreal’s Concordia University, Rollins’ artistic work combines storytelling with deeply researched phenomena in modern society and cultures. She was named valedictorian for her Ph.D. dissertation (2019), which focused on the fragility of traditional performance forms in modern China. Rollins has received a Fulbright Fellowship, the Confucius Institute Joint Ph.D. Research Fellowship and a Canadian SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, among many other awards, for her research. Recent presentation venues include Toronto’s AGO, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, Luther College, and Bucknell University. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut and has two book chapters forthcoming this year. 

Pandemic19 Official Trailer from Yung Chang on Vimeo.

See more "Michelle Meow Show"s at The Commonwealth Club of California.

Film images courtesy and copyright © Pandemic19 Productions Inc. 2020.