CNN Films & BBC Jointly Commission Doc on COVID-19 Vaccines

CNN Films and BBC have made a joint commission for a feature documentary following the global quest to develop, trial, manufacture and distribute effective vaccines to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The doc will air under the title Race for the Vaccine on CNN in the U.S., and broadcast under the working title Vaccine: The Inside Story on BBC Two in the U.K. The filmmakers received access during 2020 to the leading vaccine research teams around the world, including scientists behind the Pfizer/BioNTech, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/Moderna and the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines in development.

CNN Films has retained linear television rights throughout the U.S. and territories as well as Canada. In the U.K., the film will broadcast as a Horizon Special on BBC Two. HHMI Tangled Bank Studios holds the educational rights. GHRC and Wingspan Productions retain rights outside of the U.K. and North America.

The film will be produced and directed by award-winning British filmmaker and former virologist Catherine Gale (The Joy of Winning) and co-directed by American medical journalist and independent filmmaker Caleb Hellerman. Executive producers are Janet Tobias (Unseen Enemy) and Rogger Lopez (Memory Games) of Global Health Reporting Center (GHRC); Archie Baron (Motherland—A Genetic Journey) of Wingspan Productions; Amy Entelis, Katie Hinman, and Courtney Sexton of CNN Films; Tom Coveney of BBC; Sean B. Carroll and Jared Lipworth of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Tangled Bank Studios. The film has also been supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Gale said: “How pandemics end depends so much on how they begin, so I wanted to tell the story of the scientists who were ready and waiting for COVID-19. The story of their race against time to develop vaccines, and the lessons we take from it, will shape the future for us all, so it’s never been more important that we dive into their world. I’ve been truly inspired by them.”

Hellerman added: “This pandemic is a global catastrophe. But, we saw right away that, even as many leaders were failing us, these scientists were stepping up. This is the story of a handful of people, under incredible pressure, with the fate of the world in their hands.”

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a producer for the doc, will also narrate the North American broadcast.  “The search for a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 is the essential human advancement for 2020, if not for this generation,” said Dr. Gupta, on behalf of CNN Films. “Catherine Gale and Caleb Hellerman bring a vital mix of reverence for the scientific discovery process, and a fluency of film language, to make this critical story both compelling and accessible to all.”

Jack Bootle, BBC’s head of commissioning for science and natural history, said, “It is an incredible privilege to be able to bring BBC Two viewers the inside story of the biggest scientific breakthrough of the 21st Century; a moment in medical history that we will remember forever. With extraordinary access to the amazing women and men inside the world’s leading laboratories, Wingspan and their partners are making a film that everyone will need to see.”