We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918

We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918 (2010) blends Documentary elements. Top cast includes S. Epatha Merkerson and Anthony Fauci. The narrative builds around escalating stakes, urgent decisions, and action-driven momentum.

Actor: S. Epatha Merkerson

We meet individuals from marginalized communities who describe what it was like to live through the 1918 flu pandemic. Their experiences raise questions about the pandemic: why did it kill so many people? Why were so many of the dead young adults? Where did this lethal flu come from? How can we keep a pandemic like that from occurring again? The film follows the search for answers from an expedition to Alaska in 1951 to collect tissue from bodies buried in the permafrost, to the scientists and epidemiologists working on the same questions today. It explains the relevance of research into the 1918 pandemic to the threat of current and future flu pandemics.