Set in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, this raw and intimate documentary captures the struggles and human resilience in the battle to survive the pandemic in Wuhan, China.
On January 23rd, 2020, China locked down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, to combat the emerging COVID-19 outbreak. Set deep inside the frontlines of the crisis in four hospitals, 76 DAYS tells indelible human stories at the center of this pandemic—from a woman begging in vain to bid a final farewell to her father, a grandpa with dementia searching for his way home, a couple anxious to meet their newborn, to a nurse determined to return personal items to families of the deceased. These raw and intimate stories bear witness to the death and rebirth of a city under a 76-day lockdown, and to the human resilience that persists in times of profound tragedy.
Join us on June 20 for the film screening of the exceptional documentary 76 Days and an exclusive conversation with Director Hao Wu moderated by our film scholar Karen Ma. The documentary was the winner of 2021 Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was shortlisted for the 93rd Academy Awards.
This program is made possible through the support of the Chinese International Education Foundation, and generous supporters of China Institute in America.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
China Institute in America’s cultural programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Hao Wu’s award-winning films have received funding support from The Ford Foundation JustFilms, ITVS, Sundance Institute and Tribeca Film Institute, and distributed through Netflix, Amazon Prime, Paramount Plus, MSNBC Films, New York Times, PBS and BBC. Notable works include People’s Republic of Desire (2018, Grand Jury Award at SXSW) and 76 Days (2020, Academy Awards Shortlist, Peabody Award and Primetime Emmy Award).
Karen Ma is the author of the book China’s Millennial Digital Generation: Conversations with Balinghou Indie Filmmakers published in June 2022 by Long River Press. An independent film scholar and movie critic specializing in Chinese cinema, she taught Chinese culture and film courses at The Beijing Center of Chinese Studies before relocating to the US in 2017. Ma has a bachelor’s degree from Tokyo’s Sophia University and an M.A. in Chinese literature from the University of Washington, Seattle. She is also the author of Excess Baggage (China Books, 2013), a novel about a Chinese family’s struggle to make its way in Tokyo. She has been teaching at China Institute in Chinese language and Chinese cinema courses since 2021.
