Screening Contagion Film Series: ‘Coronation’

The Screening Contagion Film Series invites you to view four pandemic films, then attend a series of panel discussions with faculty drawn from a variety of disciplines. The four films include a Hollywood blockbuster (Steven Soderbergh, Contagion), a classic of world cinema (Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal), a horror comedy (Edgar Wright, Shaun of the Dead) and a contemporary documentary about the Wuhan lockdown (Ai Weiwei, Coronation). How might these films help us understand pandemics in the past, present and future? How does our own pandemic moment inform how we view these films? Please join us for a wide-ranging conversation with faculty in the humanities, arts and medicine as they help us make sense of our own experiences with COVID-19.

Film discussions take place February 11, March 11, April 8 and April 29.

This film discussion series is free and open to the public.

Thursday, April 8 discussion: Ai Weiwei, Coronation (2020)

A team directed by activist and artist Ai Weiwei films inside the hospitals, homes and quarantine sites of Wuhan, the first city hit in the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of the Washington University community (with a WUSTL key) may view the film prior to the discussion here. (Click on “WUSTL online resource” to be connected to the film.) All others can find stream/rent/buy options on JustWatch.com.

Panelists 

Patricia Olynyk, the Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art, Washington University

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu, Assistant Professor of History, Modern Chinese and Global History, Washington University

Victoria Vesna, Founding Director of the Art | Sci Center and Professor, Design Media Arts, UCLA

Yuqian Yan, Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Performance Cultures, Washington University 

RSVP to join this discussion.