This is a fully crowdsourced documentary depicting an entire day on Earth, more specifically July 25th, 2020. With over 300,000 videos submitted from over 190 countries, a wide swath of the world’s population on their smartphones, drones, GoPros, and more has been included. The result is a never-ending trove of humanity in all its funny, sad, sometimes mundane but always heartwarming glory.
The film opens with a series of deliveries of expectant mothers in Brazil, India, Japan, Greece, the United Kingdom and other countries. The joy that every family feels is contagious — and universal. Then it jumps straight into a series of Smash Cuts, one after another, where people wake up and greet a new day. What’s special about this montage is that these people come from all over the world, including some of the most difficult places to live, such as refugee camps and other remote areas. Still, it’s a perfect example of how everyone on the planet is connected to one another—even if it’s just taking part in familiar and somewhat mundane morning routines like breakfast, showers, milking goats, cows, and more.
The rest of the film unfolds at breakneck speed, frame after frame, playing clips of people just being human in rapid succession. While there’s a general framework that starts early in the morning and continues until bedtime, the passage of time takes place firmly in the background, serving only as a rough guide to a plethora of content that’s both vague and obvious, and intentionally free of commentary and opinion.
Life in a Day (2020) is a sequel from ten years ago or Life in a Day (2010). The original was filmed the same way, with homemade videos submitted by people from all over the world. Ten years ago, YouTube was relatively new and not as mature as it is today. Smartphone cameras weren’t as sharp and versatile as they are today, and creative video content wasn’t as common as it is today.
Today, with everyone exposed to micro-videos on social media (including Tiktok), the 2010 format seems outdated. And yet, these stories — albeit only excerpts — are equally compelling, perhaps even more compelling, for their chronicle of everyday life amidst the extraordinary events of 2020.
These events include the Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, various natural disasters, the planet’s ongoing ecological damage, and more. They all make it sound like 2020 has been one hell of a year — and things aren’t going to get better anytime soon.
But the moving images and moving stories that make it into the final cut are not only funny, entertaining, touching, grounded and real. They also celebrate humanity, a welcome reminder that life doesn’t stop while also leaving hope for the future.
