Covid-19 inspires short films

From lack of access to alcohol during lockdown to encouraging hand hygiene, filmmakers have explored different subjects

'The Hospital' is inspired by what is happening during the pandemic.

From ‘A Conviction’.

The lockdown has inspired many filmmakers to create interesting short films. While there were a variety of films with varied subjects being circulated, some Kannada short film enthusiasts and filmmakers wrote and created works around Covid-19 and the lockdown itself.

Shot remotely and with a lot of planning including Zoom calls and video calls, rehearsals and corrections, most of these films have simple storylines.

Quirky script about masks

‘Lockdown 5.0’, a three-minute film, directed by Gururaj S, a VFX artist, enforces an important message in a quick, breezy script.

The film was released when Lockdown 5.0 and Unlock 1.0 came into effect. Gururaj says, “It was expected that people would come out in large numbers in public. When a government authority tells the mass about directives, they won’t listen. I wanted my film to give out a message in a witty way, which would stay in people’s minds.”

He believes that the easiest way to enforce these rules would be that mobile phone companies create a system where the device won’t unlock if the owner (when outside) isn’t wearing a mask. “After three failed attempts Rs 200 should be deducted from the user’s network provider account. This is what formed the crux of my story.”

The zero-budget film was shot on a 7D camera, owned by Guru Raj’s senior at work. “The film required a lot of planning,” he adds.

‘Film was 26-mins-long as emotions demanded it’

Manish Babu Srinivas, SAP consultant at an MNC, wrote ‘The Hospital’, inspired by incidents happening around him.

The film has three characters and three plots, wherein each go through different phases of the lockdown. The characters converge at one point, where they get a news from the hospital, which changes their life.

“The situation when I wrote the story was where we could see people suffering due to the virus, be it in terms of business or future plans in life,” he says.

Since the situation demanded one to shoot in a minimal space, the story worked well. “Putting together each scene, correcting them, editing it and bringing together the 26-minute long film took a lot of effort. The film is long, as the emotions expressed demanded it,” he says.

‘Hygiene is the subtle message’

Ram Manjjonaath, actor, directed a film based on the pandemic called ‘Sanitizer’, which conveys the importance of maintaining hygiene and using sanitisers.

He says, “It was the beginning of the lockdown, I was at a medical store to buy a sanitiser and heard a conversation that inspired the storyline.”

The story is about two friends, who haven’t spoken for three years. “One of them used sanitisers during college, for which the other would pull her leg. As the story progresses, one can see that the latter has called the former to mend their bond, and the story unfolds to show that he is infected by the virus,” he says.

Inspired by ‘Money Heist’

‘Mini Hiest’, a five-minute film directed by Ranjan Murthy was a comical take on the lack of access to liquor during the lockdown. Inspired by the ‘Money Heist’, the spoof has three main characters in it.

The story was written by ‘The Storytellers’, which includes Ranjan and his friends Karthik S and Aditya S. He says, “The lockdown was in effect and there were memes circulating about how people were waiting for liquor stores to open. Just like the criminal mastermind, ‘The Professor’ in the original, my character directs my friends about how to get the liquor.”

Not just short films, webseries too

Anoosha Krishna, an actress, wanted to talk about domestic abuse during the lockdown, as many were stuck with their partners during these anxiety-driven times. Since the subject demanded some more time and ‘needed to capture people’s attention’, she made it as a micro webseries.

‘A Conviction’, the series has been shot on phones and the music was taken from Audioblock.com

“The film talks about physical abuse, convictions and how we judge people. It is a single story released as four episodes, with five characters, to keep the audience’s attention. I took this series up as a challenge to see if one could tell a story within four minutes and keep it as impactful as a short film,” she says.