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Small numbers of viewers gathered in Beijing to
watch the film "Wuhan Days and Nights" as it opened to the
public exactly a year after Wuhan went into a surprise 76-day
lockdown in the early hours of Jan. 23, 2020.
Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei, is believed to be the
epicentre of the global pandemic that has infected nearly 100
million people and killed over two million so far.
China managed to quash the virus months later with strict
control measures and life in Wuhan has largely returned to
normal, but the government's early response drew widespread
public criticism.
The documentary, a co-production between state media and the
Hubei Propaganda Department, was released in theatres nationwide
and features tearful scenes inside Wuhan's hospitals, including
medical staff tending to patients and shots of empty streets.
"It is using life to record life, and create a heroic hymn of
the people," said a state media article posted on the Wuhan
government website following an early viewing for medical
workers in the city Wuhan.
State media have described the film as the first major
documentary on China's outbreak.
"YEAR OF STRUGGLE"
Dozens of laudatory documentaries have been released by local
propaganda authorities and government-backed media on China's
COVID-19 outbreak, evoking wartime analogies to describe the
actions of medical workers and policymakers, including President
Xi Jinping.
The film's release comes as China battles a fresh wave of
infections after months of apparent success in containing the
virus. Authorities are discouraging travel during next month's
Lunar New Year holiday and have imposed lockdowns on some
cities, in an eerie repeat of last year.
"I wanted to learn how China got through the hardship," said a
woman surnamed Li, 32, who was one of the first people to see
the film in Beijing. "We've been through a year of struggle and
hard work, and now there are new cases in many places."
Beijing has also sought to control the narrative around the
outbreak by silencing critics.
There was an outpouring of public grief and anger in February
2020 following the COVID-19-linked death of a Chinese doctor who
had been reprimanded for issuing an early warning about the
disease.
In December, a Chinese court jailed citizen journalist Zhang
Zhan for four years for sharing her own series of first-hand
accounts from Wuhan's streets and hospitals.
Wuhan has officially recorded 46,483 cases of the disease and
3,869 deaths.
(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by Kim Coghill and Gareth
Jones)
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