National Geographic is making the Oscar-shortlisted documentary The First Wave available for free for 48 hours, beginning tomorrow, January 20th, according to Deadline.
What’s Happening:
- Matthew Heineman’s film, shot in a Queens hospital as New York City endured the initial explosion of Covid, can be seen without commercial interruption through the ABC and National Geographic apps in the U.S., starting Thursday, January 20th at 12:01 a.m. EST.
- The free release marks the two-year anniversary of the first Covid-19 case in the United States to be confirmed by the CDC. The documentary also will be available for free during that two-day window through local ABC station apps in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Fresno, California.
- The First Wave will be preceded by a special message from Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, “addressing and thanking frontline workers and medical support staff,” who have selflessly cared for the ill from the outset of the pandemic.
- Heineman, an Emmy winner and two-time DGA Award winner, earned an Oscar nomination for his 2015 film Cartel Land. The First Wave is nominated for a Producers Guild Award and won the Pare Lorentz Award from the International Documentary Association, as well as other honors from the Montclair Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Festival, and the Utah Film Critics Association, which named it best documentary.
- The First Wave is a Participant production for National Geographic. An impact campaign for the film has joined forces with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, with the goal of securing passage of The Dr. Lorna Breen Healthcare Provider Protection Act. The legislation “aims to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among health care professionals,” according to the filmmakers. “The bill passed the House of Representatives in December 2021 and is now awaiting final approval from the Senate.”
What They’re Saying:
- Matthew Heineman, The First Wave Director
- “The First Wave is about many things, but, at its core, it’s about how human beings come together in the face of crisis,”
- “I hope the film serves as an homage to the brave health care workers who have risked their lives on the frontlines of this ongoing pandemic. Now, almost two years into the crisis, they deserve our gratitude and support more than ever.”
Matthew Heineman, Director
- “We first really in earnest started thinking about the film in early March [2020] as the first cases of Covid hit the U.S.,”
- “I wanted to try to humanize this issue that at that point was so relegated to headlines and to stats and, frankly, misinformation. The original impetus was really to try to pay homage to the amazing work that healthcare workers were doing inside hospitals, something that we weren’t seeing as the general public.”
- “This is a film every citizen of the world needs to watch to understand the stress health care workers are under,”
- “COVID-19 attacks without remorse and without warning. No health care worker could have been prepared for the early stages of the pandemic. Nonetheless, we endured every challenge and obstacle as best we could while working in New York in the winter and spring of 2020. However, the detrimental effects of the mental strain during that time remain. I hope people honor us by taking this opportunity to understand what we had to endure and continue to endure.”
- Dr. Nathalie Dougé, an internal medicine physician at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens