Pandemiocracy

It's a great documentary that deals with a controversial topic. The opinions are backed up by science (Stanford and Oxford professors) and totally convincing.

The journey of an Italian-Filipino family trying to reunite amid flight bans, travels disruption and lockdowns intercuts with chronicles of the impact of lockdowns on communities across the world, personal stories of death and recovery, the damage to free speech, and eye opening lifestyle and medical advices to better fight the virus.

The storytelling of director Soriquez is fast paced and convincing and the key themes of the film, mostly the lockdown cure as worse than the disease and the world wide abuse of power and restrictions of freedom, are well documented with shocking images. I believe that the use of some stock footage is due to the fact that, evidently, this documentary was a low budget production filmed during lockdown. The statistics that Soriquez uses to back up his main ideas are taken from the Johns Hopkins University and thus truly reliable. What i didn't like is the use of AI voices where a warm human voice wouls have been much better.

A well-balanced documentary that carries on its rather controversial thesis while leaving room for the contradictory. Very informative but also highly entertaining, it shows us the side of the pandemic less discussed by newspapers and televisions. Several touching scenes make it quite emotional, and it couldn't be otherwise given the subject matter. Valuable and noteworthy is the director's intent to denounce the violation of human rights and freedom of speech perpetrated both by authoritarian governments and, unfortunately, by democratic countries. This is a documentary not to be missed and which deserves the attention of a wider audience.

It's given that this is a very emotive topic. And as always, emotive topics give birth to controversial opinions, feelings and point of view. I think that this documentary either you love it or you hate it. It all depends on how you lived (and survived) this awful pandemic. The quality of this documentary, beyond the inexpensive way it was done, is pretty decent. I am not talking about the production value, but about the way it is presented, and how the director proposes his arguments (in a pretty methodic and clear way I would say). I personally agree with the conclusions of this work: 1- keep a healthy lifestyle since the casualties due to Covid-19 were higher among people with underlying conditions. 2- The lockdowns did indeed harm people in many ways (and I would say lockdowns by age would have been more appropriate) and their effects are far from being over. 3- Treasure what matters the most because you'll never know what the future brings you (and this is particularly true in this period). This is a film worth watching.

Pandemiocracy tells the story of a family separated during the lockdown in the first year of the pandemic. The story of a Philippine mother and her two children trying to leave Italy to join the Italian father in Manila. A journey made difficult by the travel disruption that all of us certainly experienced.

But this documentary it's not only about that. The journey of the family alternates with interviews to doctors, Covid patient, concerned citizens, messages from politicians and new from all over the globe to pictures a world where reason gives in to fear, where human rights are violated and governments fail to respond properly, timely and rationally to the health emergency. The director carries on his controvertial thesis that lockdowns have been not only ineffective, but also devastating having worsened mental problems, domestic violence incidence, economic crisis, job loss and desperation.

But the film leaves also space to those with a different opinion like the Italian virologist that believes that in Italy like in many other countries, for instance, the lockdown was necessary to allow the NHS to properly do its job.

I personally think that Pandemiocracy is well-presented and reaches interesting conclusions.

This is a very well crafted documentary considered that it was obviously done low budget during the lockdown in Italy, Philippines and the US. Its message (rather controversial) is clear and well supported by statistics and scientific findings. It states what I also believe is the truth and might also change the point of view of those who initially don't share the same ideas and opinions. Its main argument is that lockdowns didn't prevent at all the spread of the Covid-19 virus. The main study that backs the point comes from one of the best University in the World: Stanford.

The eye-opening interviews and data presentations are the intercuts of the story of an Italian-Filipino family who got separated due to travel restrictions, like many other families actually did. But here this family is the very own of director Soriquez who, during the months long forced separation, did his own research on the political and human impact of the lockdowns across several countries. What emerges is a painful truth: the cure has been worse than the disease. It might seems like a bit of an arduous statement but, sadly, there are many studies and researches (not all of them reported in this documentary of course) that well support it.

Particularly interesting in Pandemiocracy, is how the director stresses, through interviews, the important of a healthy lifestyle as a plus in successfully fighting this virus. It doesn't mean that if you are healthy you cannot be affected by it. There were cases, like the one of Leonardo Greco, where healthy and young people got it really bad. This serves as warning not to undermine the aggressiveness of this virus. But generally, the statistics have shown that the people that suffered and died because of it, were mainly old or with co-morbidity (diabetes, heart problems and so on).

One criticism I feel to bring forward is that the film uses a bit too much stock footage, even though well selected and almost always very relevant to the topic being discussed.

Another criticism is the use of AI narrating voices instead of warm human voices. I guess this was only due to budget considerations unless the director really wanted to make the cold reality he depicts even colder. This is somehow an interesting point.

The coverage of the murder of George Floyd was shocking with the parallelism of the unfortunately famous "I can't breath" cry of pain, with the shortness of breath of people kept breathing through respirators. It comes in my mind that 2020 is a real "I can't breath year" under all points of view. Even from those of millions of people kept captive inside their own homes.

The editing of this work (done by Soriquez) is really good and fast paced, as it always keeps the attention up. The importance of a good musical score is also well felt. All in all is a well-crafted documentary (mostly considered the budget that was put into it) that well presents its convincing point of view.