Throughout the past three years a number of documentary films have sprouted up, which critically dismantle the adoption and enforcement of harsh global covid policies. But first-time director Vera Sharav’s new five-episode docuseries Never Again Is Now Global is the first film to draw parallels between the 1930’s Nazi era, when government took control of medicine in order to deploy discriminatory health measures, and the restrictive global covid policies enacted since March 2020 under the guise of public health.
This is the first film directed by a Holocaust survivor, Vera Sharav. She partnered with two seasoned producers who have extensive credits in Hollywood documentary production and were introduced to Sharav via a mutual friend in the health freedom world. (The two use aliases in the film’s credits and in this article, appearing as Rose Smith and Robert Blanco, in order to avoid the risk of their high-profile Hollywood projects being defunded.)
“It was December 11, 2021. We innocently went to Vera’s house for a meeting, having no idea what we were getting into,” Smith describes. Blanco continues: “If a Holocaust survivor breaks out the cheese blintzes at 9pm and says, ‘I need help with something,’ how are you going to say no? So we just said, ‘We’re going to do it,’ not knowing the extent or scope of it. At the time there was zip money, zip resources,” he recalls. “When we had our first meeting it was really clear that Robert and Vera had a connection beyond time. They complete each other’s sentences on this topic. They have a synergy that is just so beautiful,” Rose observes.
Together with Sharav they formed a small team to carry the heavy lift of production themselves; with few resources at the outset, the producers retrieved their own camera equipment from storage, transported it to a friend’s apartment and recruited a like-minded cinematographer to film her in an artful interview that comprises part of the film’s narrative spine. The small team also managed the entire post-production process solo. Though Blanco typically hires editors for his projects, he says he couldn’t think of any like-minded colleagues to approach. He explains that even if he had suspected a colleague might lean toward health freedom, he couldn’t confirm it without outing himself. Out of necessity, Blanco decided to dive in as editor himself.
When the producers joined the project, Sharav shared with them a list of potential interviewees primarily in Israel, generated by a friendly source. Smith became the casting director and started cold-calling people. She found that many wanted to talk but then grew afraid and pulled back. The first person they interviewed was Sarah Gross. “It kind of happened organically. Whoever we got seemed to just kind of fall into place,” she says.
