We speak to photographer and documentary filmmaker, Andrea Pizzini, about his experiences spending six months inside an Italian Covid ward to record the true realities of the pandemic. Last year, Italy became one of the first European countries to be affected by Covid; tragically suffering the highest number of deaths recorded on its soil since World War II. Amidst all the fear and panic, however, conspiracy theories were on the rise: Italian doctors and nurses were accused of making the whole pandemic up. It was this type of fake news that pushed photographer and documentary filmmaker, Andrea Pizzini, to create a film that would tell the real story. In our interview above, Pizzini told Johnnie that the journey to creating his documentary started when a friend, who works in an intensive care unit, was attacked by conspiracy theorists on social media. Image from Pizzini’s photographic story project, “Wavebreakers” Pizzini wanted to do something to help his friend and at first, this was as simple as taking photos of her at work to show she was real, and truly helping to fight Covid. By the end of his first month on an intensive care ward, however, things had changed. Pizzini built strong relationships interviewing all the doctors, nurses and staff of the unit, and the photography project turned into a series of short video interviews and stories that racked up thousands of views. Pizzini eventually went on to spend six months at the unit, capturing the story of staff and...
Published By: CineD - Thursday, 6 May, 2021