Just in time for the upcoming Presidential Election, NEON has unveiled the first trailer and premiere date for Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillingerand’s documentary Totally Under Control exploring the global pandemic across the country. The trailer can be viewed in the player below!
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Quietly shot over the past four months, the documentary explores that from July 15 to August 31, the American death toll from COVID-19 was at an average of 1,000 per day, double the number of lives lost on 9/11 every week, and is currently estimated at 190,000 deaths.
On January 20, the US and South Korea both discovered their first cases of COVID-19. However, nine months later, the novel virus has claimed the lives of almost 200,000 Americans and caused staggering economic damage, while inSouth Korea, there were no significant lockdowns and, in an urbanized population of 51 million, only 344 lives have been lost.
The carelessly designed lockdowns and their long-lasting economic effects have led to massive job losses (23 million/14.7 percent in April), widespread hunger, dislocation and a runaway federal deficit.Had the federal government done its job properly — by following clear guidelines in place based on past pandemics — most of the death and destruction could have been avoided. While the current administration makes its claims for a job well done, the fact is that the US response to COVID-19 is one of the worst, with 4 percent of the world’s population and 21 percent of the deaths.
Combining damning testimony from public health officials with investigative reporting, Gibney works to expose a system-wide collapse caused by a profound dereliction of Presidential leadership. It will be a generation before we know the full extent of the damage wrought by the pandemic, but Totally Under Control looks to stand as the definitive account of the Trump administration’s incompetence, corruption and denial in the face of the global pandemic.
Financially backed by multiple well-known teams including Stacey Offman and Richard Perello of Jigsaw Productions, frequent Jigssaw collaborators Alison Ellwod & Maiken Baird, Play/Action Pictures’ Jeffrey Lurie & Marie Therese Guirgis, Jeff Skoll & Diane Weyermann of Participant, Tom Quinn, Dan O’Meara & Jeff Deutchman of NEON and Andrew Morrison, Mark Lampert and Michael Sacks of Yellow Bear Films all executive producing.
“With an extraordinary team of collaborators, I was compelled to mount this production when I saw the scale of incompetence and political corruption by the Trump Administration in the face of a global pandemic,” Gibney said in a statement. “Now we know that by Feb. 7, Trump knew that COVID was, in his words, ‘a deadly virus.’ But instead of working to protect the American people by containing the virus, the current administration was willfully blind to the growing contagion (‘it’s like a miracle; it will disappear,’ said Trump) in hopes that voters wouldn’t notice any problems until after the 2020 election. While the current administration tries to frame the situation as an unavoidable crisis, it is really closer to a crime of negligence. Weirdly enough, I don’t see this as a political film; it’s a film about incompetence and corruption that is totally out of control.”
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Totally Under Control is set to debut on digital platforms and VOD on October 13, followed by its premiere on Hulu on October 20.
