I went down to DC with a cinematographer and a sound person and we created our own COVID bubble so we would be as safe as possible when we were around Tony. It was a very challenging time for anyone in the film business to work, we divided and conquered. Tobias: We actually didn’t see each other for about 5 months from when we started. How were you able to film and produce a documentary about Fauci during the height of COVID? We then had the incredible fortune of selling to National Geographic. reached out to the leadership at the NIH saying I’d love to make a film about him, then and I touched based and decided that we would team up. Fauci in a way that the majority of Americans really had no reason to be. COVID really broke and we were all suddenly aware of Dr. Hoffman: Having a long history working with the NIH (National Institutes of Health), I approached them. John and I then partnered at the beginning of COVID because it was clear it was going to be a very complicated environment where you needed the smartest people working together to try and do justice to Tony’s whole life in the middle of the pandemic.
He thought about it, and said yes… and then COVID happened. I said to him someone should do a portrait of your life, you’re an incredible example of a public servant in American life having served now 7 presidents and testifying in front of Congress more than any person. Tobias: We had been working on a film on HIV/Aids and during the process of doing that, I got to know Dr. The film shows in a quite divided America today, he still is interested in outcomes, not in partisanship. In fact, the Aids activists called him a murderer, but he continued to listen and try and bridge to them to solve problems and figure out a way to work together.
Hoffman has a long history of working on issues with Americans as well (addiction, Alzheimers, obesity, sleep- loss) but started making HIV prevention films in the mid-80s while working in hospitals, another pandemic that they say forged Fauci into the man he is today.Īs Tobias says, one of the things you learn in the film is how hard Fauci works to understand people who didn’t necessarily like him or agree with him. Tobias worked on a documentary ‘Unseen Enemy’, which caught the attention of Fauci due to the subject matter: Pandemics. However, the fascination with Fauci started even before COVID-19.