Contrary to president Donald Trump’s repeated declarations, the coronavirus pandemic was not — and still isn’t — totally under control. That lie is central to “Totally Under Control,” the latest documentary from Alex Gibney. Neon, which will distribute the documentary this fall, released a trailer for the upcoming film on Friday morning.
“Totally Under Control” was filmed in secret over five months earlier in the year and focuses on the Trump administration’s ongoing failures to adequately respond to the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected over 7 million Americans, 200,000 of which have died from the virus. The documentary includes a variety of interviews with scientists, medical professionals, and government officials to discern how and why the country’s leadership failed to deal with the pandemic.
Per Neon, the documentary’s synopsis reads: “Where did we go wrong? As the presidential election nears, Americans are increasingly enraged by a lack of clear leadership, endemic political corruption and left to wonder how did the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world manage to fail so thoroughly in its response to a global pandemic? Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, directing with Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, interrogates this question and its devastating implications in ‘Totally Under Control.’ With damning testimony from public health officials and hard investigative reporting, Gibney exposes a system-wide collapse caused by a profound dereliction of presidential leadership.”
“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 an September statement coinciding with the film’s announcement. “Now we know that by February 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.”
“Totally Under Control” marks Gibney’s second Trump-related documentary of the year. His “Agents of Chaos” documentary miniseries, which centered on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, premiered on HBO in September.
“Totally Under Control” will premiere on-demand on October 13 and will be available on Hulu on October 20. Check out the trailer for “Totally Under Control” below.
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