A Doomed COVID-19 Cruise – First Trailer for ‘The Last Cruise’ Doc

ByContributor March 16, 2021

“If we’re still reporting this many cases, how are we ever gunna get off the ship?” HBO has revealed the official trailer for the documentary short The Last Cruise, which will be available to watch on HBO later this month. The Last Cruise is a 40 minute doc that’s premiering at the SXSW Film Festival this week in the Documentary Shorts Competition section. A terrifying origin story of the pandemic, the film chronicles the first & largest outbreak of the novel coronavirus outside China: the Diamond Princess cruise liner. Through never-before-seen footage from passengers and crew, we watch class divisions erupt as humanity misses its chance to contain COVID-19. It looks like a harrowing film about the coronavirus and how authorities tried to contain it. Probably best as a 40-min short because I don’t think anyone can watch a full 90 mins of this.

Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Hannah Olson’s doc The Last Cruise, direct from HBO’s YouTube:

The Last Cruise Poster

Using intimate footage recorded by passengers and crew, The Last Cruise, is a first-person account of the nightmare that transpired aboard the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship, which initially set sail from Yokohama, Japan on January 20, 2020 in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. By February 26, 2020, the ship accounted for more than half of all the documented COVID-19 cases outside of China, with more than 700 people on board infected. The Last Cruise is directed by doc filmmaker Hannah Olson, director of the doc film Baby God previously, as well as co-producer work on the “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr” TV series. This is premiering at the SXSW Film Festival this month. HBO will then release The Last Cruise streaming on HBO Max starting March 30th this month. Anyone want to watch?

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