By definition they are universal, but pandemics can also be intensely personal things.
Cracking Covid, a new documentary from Emmy Award-winning Melbourne film-makers Genepool Productions, delivers powerful and penetrating insights into the emotional and physical responses of Australia’s coronavirus victims, clinicians, vaccine researchers —and even musicians.
Recorded in real time over the past year, we see the fear. the challenges, the tragedies, and joys of ordinary Aussies as their lives are profoundly changed, and sometimes ended, by a virus that is both strange and a stranger to medical science.
Filmmaker and narrator Sonya Pemberton joins Professor Peter Doherty — who won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries about the human immune system — in a series of Zoom chats across many months.
Professor Doherty, warm and witty, provides immediate and informed commentary as Melbourne, Australia and the world struggles to control rising case numbers.
In the Melbourne institute that bears Doherty’s name, as well as in research labs in other parts of the countries, scientists race to understand the virus. to find its weaknesses, and to develop a vaccine against it.
Pemberton is a fly on the wall — or, at least, an eye on the Zoom meetings —as the teams work to build a defence in a high-stakes, ultra-competitive contest to defeat SARS-COV-2.
We see determination, concern, soaring optimism and crushing defeat, as Australia’s best hope for a vaccine fails at final fence.
As the numbers rise. Cracking Covid never forgets that each case is an individual — unique, connected and loved.
We meet Michael Rojales, whose life hangs in the balance as he’s placed into an induced coma in ICU. Why is he so unwell? Tracking the body’s immune response to COVID-19. alongside the journey of Michael’s surrounding family, we gain deeper understanding.
Then there is Leila Sawenko and her three children. She develops symptoms, but her kids do not. Does their apparent immunity hold a vital clue? Researchers are anxious to find out.
And then there is Mirabai Nicholson-McKellar, whose initial infection is mild, but who then develops the crippling and debilitating symptoms of “long Covid”. Doctors struggle to understand why this formerly vibrant young woman is dragged ever lower by a virus that for most people resolves in just a few weeks.
Pemberton suddenly finds herself a player in her own show when her hometown of Melbourne enters strict lockdown for 111 days. Like the other five million people in the city, she experiences a profound sense of dislocation, unease and — when the lockdown at last ends — fear and gratitude.
The effects of the pandemic extend far beyond the laboratories and clinics of the world. It is also challenge to artists of all types as they grapple with how to respond to a threat that is simultaneously ubiquitous and intensely personal.
Among them is Melbourne composer Dale Cornelius. who responded by launching a project called ‘52 Fridays’. which found him filming his improvisations on piano and other instruments. reaching to provide an aural ode to the outbreak. Dale’s music provides a telling and deeply emotional soundtrack to Cracking Covid.
Cracking Covid is the surprisingly intimate story of Australia’s race against the virus —as it happened, in the moment. and on the fly. This is not a history. It’s a race-call.
Production credits: A Genepool Production. Produced in association with the ABC, with the assistance of Film Victoria. Executive Producer, Genepool Productions: Sonya Pemberton. Commissioning Editor ABC: Stephen Oliver.
