By John Kriz
Last week New Canaan was treated to a special screening of the documentary “15 Days” at The Playhouse. Every seat was taken.
The film explores what it views as children’s learning losses and mental health crises, and the inequalities that resulted from the extended school closures, plus how some groups worked to keep schools closed, and how various scientific analyses of the crisis were ignored.
The term 15 Days refers to the original time estimate needed to staunch the spread of COVID.
“I wanted to make sure that the stories of the children and the families who were so horribly impacted by the extended school closures were not forgotten. I thought it was my responsibility to preserve their stories forever and to make sure that the special interests — in particular, the teacher’s unions — would be held accountable and would not be allowed to rewrite history,” said Natalya Murakhver, the film’s director and one of its producers.
Ms. Murakhver, an immigrant from the Soviet Union and self-described ‘Upper West Side Former Progressive Mom,’ became increasingly concerned about what she saw as the growing harm to children from the extended school closures, and organized parents in New York City to get the schools, and extracurriculars such as sports, open, back up and running as usual. She also sued then-Mayor Bill de Blasio to reopen that city’s schools. She is co-founder of not-for-profit Restore Childhood https://www.restorechildhood.com which was “founded to protect children from governmental overreach in health and education.”
New Canaan’s Alexandra (Alex) Sullivan, a parent of two young boys and who helped bring this film to town, said “I think we owe it to our nation’s children to come to terms with exactly what was done to them and why it was done. And I think we haven’t seen the last of the fallout from 2020 to 2022 with regard to our nation’s mental health.” Ms. Sullivan went on to say, “I brought this film [to New Canaan] because I am not willing to let history be rewritten and say that we did the best we could with the information we had at the time.”
Ms. Sullivan is also the author of the book “She Didn’t Start the Fire: The True Story of One Mother’s Journey from Apolitical to Activist,” which explores her own experience with COVID school closures, and especially her efforts to eliminate mask mandates for children.
“There is a real, continuous effort by bad actors who use certain issues to gain power and push ideological conformity,” continued Ms. Sullivan. “And COVID was the purest example of that. And I think this film did a great job showing that. And I am trying to bring things to my community that really documents the difference between people who virtue signal versus people who are actually doing good. And I think in tandem with what my book explored was that the parents who fought against cancel culture and ad hominem attacks from not only their government but also their neighbors were the real heroes of this time.”
Stephanie Edmonds of Stamford, a co-producer of “15 Days” as well as its cinematographer and editor, also helped bring the film to New Canaan. A tenured former New York City high school history teacher who was dismissed for declining to receive a COVID vaccine, Ms. Edmonds said film was a good medium for the topic because “we believe telling stories is how you change hearts.” She further noted that, “it wasn’t just documenting, but really investigating and figuring out ‘why did this happen?’”
Today Ms. Edmonds homeschools her son, tutors children and teach classes, often for other homeschooled children.
After the screening the three women gathered as a panel and responded to the many questions from attendees about the film and the topics it explores.
The film’s website, https://www.15daysfilm.com has more information, and a link to view the film for free on X, where it has garnered more than a million views.
