Reality TV

Most documentaries are filmed by seasoned professional cameramen or women. This one, however, is comprised of 112 short videos filmed in Wuhan by 77 members of the general public, and put together by a dozen university students charged with collecting and editing them.

Titled Wuhan 2020: How We Fight COVID-19, the documentary was released on Chinese micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo on April 2, and reviews the lives of local people－their joy, tears, humor and fear－in Wuhan from Jan 1 to Feb 8, the period between New Year's Day and the Chinese Lantern Festival.

Within the first five days of its release, it garnered more than 30 million views. The documentary is made by Tsingying Film and video-sharing social network Kuaishou.

Tsingying Film was set up in 2006 by students, alumni and faculty members of Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communication. Previous documentaries include Himalaya: Ladder to Paradise and Masters in Forbidden City.

According to Sun Hong, co-director of the documentary, a dozen members joined the project voluntarily and the 18-minute documentary took the team around six weeks to finish.

They scoured tens of thousands of videos on Kuaishou and, with the authorization of the content owners, selected 112 clips from 77 users to make the documentary.