They documented the Ebola crisis in West Africa. But shooting at a hospital Battling coronavirus in his native Italy was more of a challenge

Patients lie motionless in a hospital intensive care unit as doctors manage their beds. The patient faces are obscured by fans; medical masks. The death toll is rising so fast that doctors maintain longer count. “The beds do not even have time to cool before being taken from other patients,” said ICU nurse Cristina Pilati. But rolling over the stretchers monitor beeping sound starts texts Pilati, ‘Angel hand, as a teenager cared for in intensive care. , Spend your time waiting for that second chance, “he sings., For a break that would be good. ‘This scene is one of many intimate moments in Italy COVID War, a documentary PBS’FRONTLINE Tuesday previews that we play themselves in a hospital hit hard in Cremona, a city in northern Italy. Directed by Emmy and BAFTA winning director Sasha Joelle Achilli, in Milan, the film offers one of the first in-depth looks into a Battling hospital born Crown when it erupted crisis and he grew. Achilli spent several months in West Africa to film the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak to be documented, but the crown pandemic in their country of origin, where his family still lives, has presented new difficulties. “Emotionally, it was indeed a challenge. It feels so much more personal, “he says.” But I feel very privileged that I was able to do that and more to get an understanding of this virus. If you understand something, you are less afraid of it. “Film Achilli follows Notärztin Francesca Mangiatordi as they sailed COVID-19, care for their employees, their patients and their families. Achilli, who now lives in London, but left for shooting in Italy began in March Cremona shot 18, just a day before the Italian victims who have passed from China, the COVID-19 country hit more to be at the time, more than 32,000 people have COVID-19 start of the town is dead bang. it is updated here with our daily newsletter crown. health system in Italy, the first to be hit hard in Europe, it was quickly overwhelmed by the increase in cases. in the opening scenes of the documentary, discuss if doctors give their fans staying at a youth or old. later in the film, the doctors get sick yourself, stay quarantined in their homes continue to rise as the number of cases across the country. the documentary also highlights the victims who try to lav speakers on the front line and the risks they are taking the husband Mangiatordi was to control a higher risk for the virus, but they stayed on the job front. Perhaps that is unstable to the most powerful, or the documentation that interferes with one of the major stories COVID-19 around: that the young and healthy will not be severely affected. While young people are less likely to die of COVID-19, they are still susceptible to serious infections of the virus. The documentary follows an 18-year and 30-year-old mother of three girls as they battle for their lives. “The next thing tells me that only affects older people, I spit in their eyes,” says Mangiatordi after a 42 year old man died of COVID-19 documentation was inspired to make Achilli after a photograph from Mangiatordi a sister taken exhausted, Elena Pagliarini, he broke on the keyboard at the beginning of March. to see within a few hours after the photo, the two women have spoken on the phone. A few days later Achilli was filming in the hospital. Achilli spoke with time about the making of the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. His documentary is a hospital-depth combat and the intimate image COVID-19 we have so far. What do you hope people take away from it? My goal has changed since I went to Italy before. When I went outside the borders were closed in Europe, but fled the crisis was not yet. At that time, the message was “Italy three weeks before you.” But now we are all in it. What I want to convince people of this documentary it is an understanding of the virus. I want to squeeze all the conspiracy theories, and for people to understand the emotional and psychological impact it has had on the health sector and those heavily affected. I like people realize that although there is no reason to panic, it is a heaviness to it, and we must take seriously the measures. Italy now comes from them, hopefully. The cases have fallen sharply. And it is precisely because of the blockade and the measures which have been taken, that this is possible. This is what I hope people get out of it. Above all, the American public since the protests that are taking place. This is very real. Since Italy is the first Western country was a COVID-19 burst, many other nations in the West-to-face who saw predict in Italy, what could be the future of their countries alike. As someone who watched the eruption unfold, what do you think the world can learn Italian from the experience? The world needed to look up in Italy. Now the world is currently living. Instead, the Italian draconian measures or criticizing the culture of Italian siesta, should be taken seriously and not be tossed around the idea of ​​herd immunity. If there is a country, forcing people to stay at home in this way means that it is serious. But until we see that every family has been affected by the virus, or someone lost on it until the morgues are full and not very coffins to be buried temporarily, until you see the behavior that is people will not change. These types of outbreaks will keep happening. We have to think about staying in places, to be so far away. We are all connected and more connected than we want to believe. So if this starts to happen in Italy, Europe locks should have started before he got out of control. The United States would take it seriously. No one is immune. What are underreported stories of this crisis? There was a point where 13% of cases in March Italy were health workers. Of course, employees have more access to health trials therefore most of them had to be tested. But the numbers were still high. I remember this debate with Francesca and her husband: Why do so many people get sick? Part of it is a lack of disinfectants. The ER has never been disinfected in the outbreak for three or four weeks. There was no methodology introduced. The hospital is not a structure that facilitates the triage infectious disease. It ”s hard to criticize a unit or entity, or blame someone for all these cases, health care professionals, but we have to have facilities that can treat highly contagious diseases. As Italian journalist who reported on the crisis in Africa and the Middle East, was, as reported on the front of your country? Emotionally, it was really a challenge. Many of the stories I’ve done, really, really sad situations that are emotionally touched me. But there is something different about them, when you are in your own country covered. It feels a lot more personal. They know the culture, the language, the common way of communicating without speaking of the need. It seemed so much more personal and emotionally exhausting in a way I had not experienced despite working on stories emotionally looking in my career in the beginning. I think, for me the worst when I landed in Rome, and I had not been in since Christmas. I flew and it was completely empty. He felt like something out of a movie of apocalypse in which cities and let the people have left. I remember the hotel. I called my friend and just burst into tears, because the lock was not done in London. Although I had heard the stories about my family to see and see his country in particular Italy, which is so alive, where people hug and kiss all the time to see how completely empty and completely disappeared with human interaction , just it was not Italy. It was not my country. It seems absurd, but it was a great emotional triggers, almost more of a COVID hospital. Because he had, I would be ready for what I see. But I was not prepared for Rome. What was the highlight of shooting experience, and what was the biggest challenge? The highlight was the life I had with Francesca [Mangiatordi, documentation of medical emergency]. He opened the doors for me, completely. I was their working lives and then go back home with his family. E ‘was to meet her and her family and the structure of this relationship, as well as with the other sisters. I spoke with Cristina [one of the ICU] nurse the other day and he said, “They were part of the family, who lived with us. You are one of us even further.” The highlight was that we are part of a great and important history as well in Italy and the unique experience of life on the front with health workers working in. I feel very privileged that I was able to do that and more to get an understanding of this virus. If you understand something, you are less afraid of it. The hardest thing is to report as a journalist in the country that will really protect certain parts of the culture, the way people and want to tell the story. You are an insider. It ‘hard to step back and look in the same way that you look elsewhere. I realize this is a very different kind of story, if you know the language and you’re not a stranger. E ‘was really easy for me to get the degree of intimacy that I have. I do not think that in other parts of the world, would have been possible. There is a beauty just by looking around you and try to tell stories that are just as important, the stories of the door next to it is more likely than anywhere else. E ‘was really nice and brought me closer to nature in Italy. Both you and Francesca are Mangiatordi front vorderster women to work this pandemic what its environments often dominated by men much. In your experience, how does the general shape what it means to be a worker forefront? Personally, I often assume that a woman benefits. We often have the best ability to access and build relationships with people, especially when it comes to women and children. Women are more likely to open up for women. I decided to find not a female doctor. I found them through a photo he had taken. And then he sent me his video diaries, and I realize that she was amazing. Do you want to Italy, which can be really misogynistic, I thought I’d get a little ‘old, grumpy Italian men are straight. Instead, I found this hospital full of resolute young women and men as well. It was women do the hard work. There were groups of women in front vorderster body to transfer this struggle. I do not mean to sound trite, but this group of women in front vorderster, are healthcare professionals are multitasking, they can deal with dramatic situations, but also very sensitive and be present. This is what made this group of women so incredibly in COVID struggle. I remember one night at the end of my time there, it was around 03:00, and the doctors had delivered pizzas. These doctors and nurses all sat down and began to tell what had happened in the last two months. It ‘was like group therapy. This is the bond that had been able to create together. Well, they help each other for reflection and analysis process. You are this incredible unit. I think in a sense, women often have this ability to talk to each other. We can talk about emotions. And that’s what made these women so strong. She reported on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2015, the documentation produced outbreak, which examines the mismanagement of the crisis both by governmental and international authorities. Do you see similarities between the epidemic of Ebola and 19-COVID current pandemic? What else feels this epidemic? What it feels like is that when he started in China, people thought it was far away. They remembered probable SARS that never really went beyond Asia. Also as Francesca doctors speak, they say that if COVID-19 is one of the messages, they never thought it would come to Italy. And that’s exactly what happened in West Africa. There was an outbreak, and when it was reported, people said it would never reach the West. gets sick only when an American doctor who start people’s attention. The differences are mainly to do with the unpredictably than the Ebola virus. Although Ebola is terrifying, I felt as if I had more control over it do not get. But with coronavirus, I just do not know how to do about you. This is what makes COVID-19 frightening and uncontrollable. It is also not as ebola, where people were bleeding from their eyes. Or, as in West Africa, where would you like people to extinction road. This is not what we see visually the COVID-19 The one made it easier for people to reject. At first it was older people who have been affected by it. And ‘cynical to say, but an image acceptable to many people as a young person, an old person is uncomfortable to see. All these factors help us not to take it seriously. I remember a friend of mine in Milan he sent me a message saying “Sasha, I do not see this really dramatic images from the hospitals” People in Italy questions the seriousness of it, because I have not seen the drama. Outbreak warns that the world against future epidemics is not safe. What to see to feel an even greater outbreak took place five years after the details on Ebola coverage? I think it started in China, I was like everyone else. I thought it would not come here. I had to go with my friend in April to six months of sabbatical trip. And if COVID-19 reaches Italy, naive though I was very emotionally affected by, what are the limits of the world was going was not yet closed. Naive, we thought it did not pass through Italy and Iran. If I’m brutally honest, to be reported again with an outbreak in West Africa, he has not prepare me. In Italy COVID War premieres at Frontline (PBS) and start streaming on YouTube on Tuesday, May 19th at 22:00 ET and is on pbs.org/frontline and video app on PBS EUROPEAN SUMMER TIME 19:00 available. Please send any tips, leads and stories [email protected]
Image copyright Arianna Pagani