“Blame” a documentary movie about how COVID-19 politics upended science

Exclusive photos, reviews & schedule for the documentary movie “Blame”

“Blame” is a documentary movie about the effects of COVID-19 politics by the Oscar-nominated, Sundance Festival award winning Swiss Director Christian Frei. The film focuses on three scientists, Dr. Zhengli Shi formerly of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Dr. Linfa Wang of Duke-NUS Singapore, and myself. It tells the story of how we formed a collaboration back in the early 2000s to try and understand the origins of SARS which caused a global panic when it emerged in Southern China in 2003. Blame begins by highlighting our discovery in 2005 that bats are the reservoir of SARS-related coronaviruses, and how we raised the red flag repeatedly that these viruses had high potential to cause a true pandemic. Of course, we weren’t the only scientists saying that at the time – my colleague Dr. Hume Field and others in Australia had shown that bats are the reservoir for Hendra virus, and Nipah virus which emerged previously in Malaysia. The movie picks up these threads and shows how scientists conduct research in the field, and in the lab to understand how pandemics emerge.

Of course, that is just the beginning of the story. The film then moves onto trying to understand why our warnings weren’t heeded, and why we scientists came under attack when the pandemic we predicted began. When Christian Frei first approached me in 2020 with a pitch for a documentary, we were increasingly bombarded by conspiracy theories claiming that our own research had caused COVID-19. We’d been pitched by multiple documentary teams asking us to go into the field with them and show them how we do our work. But what made Christian’s approach different was the thought that he’d clearly put into his ideas for a film, even before he contacted me. He had a storyline (“virus hunters, bats, and a planet out of balance”), and had done his research – he talked about the origins of Nipah, SARS and Hendra, and understood the science behind the work. He told me he wasn’t interested in bothsideism and getting into a pseudo-debate about the origins of COVID-19. Instead, he talked about a fight over politics that had embedded itself in COVID science, and about the ‘screaming narratives’ that try to win the day.

 

If you mix politics with science… you get politics!

The result of Christian’s vision, and nearly 5 years of hard work is a sensitive and deep film that cuts through the arguments and hype to show what is at stake when politics and science are mixed. Christian and his award-winning team went through multiple exhausting fieldtrips to film in bat caves in southeast Asia. They made repeated efforts to get permission to film Zhengli Shi in China, and were able to film behind the scenes as the harassment and politics took control of the COVID story. The film contains footage that that no one else has been able to show, everything from visiting my house to meet my wife, our family and our dogs, through to private footage I shot in Wuhan in 2021 when I took part in the WHO-China Joint Study. It’s a remarkable documentation of what really happened in Wuhan. The film includes never-before-seen footage taken by me in Wuhan during the WHO team’s time there. Some pictures from that visit are shown publicly for the first time below.

The film also tells the sad story of just how damaging politics can be to important scientific research. None of the three scientists the film focuses on have come through this unscathed. Zhengli Shi has been attacked at every step, with demands for her papers to be retracted, online harassment, multiple investigations, and her movements made difficult now. Linfa has forged ahead with critical research on COVID and other emerging diseases, but you will see a sadness in him about how this work has been undermined. As for myself – EcoHealth Alliance is now closed after more than 50 years, and my work is attacked on a daily basis. Despite all this, the three of us remain close friends and colleagues, and we all remain optimistic that one day people will accept the glaring truth about COVID’s origins, and how our work has been misconstrued and maligned.

 

Premiere, reviews and awards

The film premiered at the documentary film festival Visions du Réel in Nyon Switzerland, where it was selected as the opening movie. I was honored to be there in person and at the end of the premiere, the Director Christian Frei invited me on stage to say a few words about science, politics and pandemics. It was a moving moment – this was the first time I’d seen the movie in one sitting, on a big screen and with the full sound system playing the incredible music. The cinematography is world class, and the images brought up so many deeply personal moments that it was hard to get my words out – especially when the audience gave a spontaneous standing ovation.

 

 

The movie is now traversing the world in the film festival circuit. It’s been shown in São Paulo at the É Tudo Verdade/It’s All True festival and was awarded the Grand Prix at the 5th Contemporary Science Film Festival in Moscow.

It received a glowing review in Variety, headlined by a quote from Christian Frei “In a world where nothing is true anymore, everything becomes possible.” This review has been highlighted in IMDb’s official entry about Blame.

The important film industry publication ScreenDaily said that “Blame becomes a chilling depiction of the way narratives are formed, amplified by politicians & embraced by hostile elements of the media… Featured is a rogue’s gallery of Trump associates, from Robert F. Kennedy jr. to Steve Bannon, who seem determined to discredit & dishonour respected scientists whose views do not align with their own.”

The movie was well-received in Latin America: “A documentary that… offers a warning about the dangers of neglecting the truth in favor of sensationalist theories. It is a testament to how science, when threatened by interests unrelated to the truth, becomes a victim of political & media manipulation” and in the online journal Live India: “I had this epiphany early in the pandemic,” said Frei. “Those who warned us might be the ones who are blamed.. Was I surprised? Not really. The playbook of Steve Bannon is simple: uncertainty is not the enemy – it’s a tool.”

I was interviewed about the movie in the Swiss press (NZZ), under the headline “I refuse to be canceled”

The movie is also featured heavily in Philipp Markolin’s new book “Lab Leak Fever” which he details in his blog post. Philipp spent time with me in the field while Christian was filming the movie and appears in it with comments on the social media algorithms and information ecosystem that help drive harmful lab leak narratives

 

Watch Blame at the following festivals

Blame is currently being shown in festivals around the world. These are public and tickets can be booked by visiting the websites below. The movie is then likely to be released more widely later in 2025. Keep checking back to this blog for updates and more information!

April 11 and 11: Three screenings in Brazil at “It’s all true” documentary film festival

May 9: German premiere at the 1500-seat Deutsches Theater in Munich

May 10: Łódź; May 11 and 12: Warsaw; May 13: Gdańsk Part of the “Docs Against Gravity” festival in the Polish cities of Łódź, Warsaw, and Gdańsk.

May 14: Another Screening at DokFest in Munich at 20.30

June-September (To be announced soon – keep checking back!)

Blame is scheduled to be shown in a number of festivals in June, July and later, but the events are not publicly listed yet. I’ll update this blog once the festivals make their final selections public.

 

Further information about Blame

To keep up to date with listings, reviews, awards etc. for the movie, I recommend following Christian Frei’s public Facebook page 

 

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