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.” Ram Manjjonaath, actor, directed a film based on the pandemic called ‘Sanitizer’, which conveys the importance of maintaining hygiene and using sanitisers. The film is long, as the emotions expressed demanded it,” he says. “Putting together each scene, correcting them, editing it and bringing together the 26-minute long film took a lot of effort. Since the situation demanded one to shoot in a minimal space, the story worked well. “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. The characters converge at one point, where they get a news from the hospital, which changes their life. The film has three characters and three plots, wherein each go through different phases of the lockdown. Manish Babu Srinivas, SAP consultant at an MNC, wrote ‘The Hospital’, inspired by incidents happening around him. ‘Film was 26-mins-long as emotions demanded it’ “The film required a lot of planning,” he adds. The zero-budget film was shot on a 7D camera, owned by Guru Raj’s senior at work. This is what formed the crux of my story.” “After three failed attempts Rs 200 should be deducted from the user’s network provider account. 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. I wanted my film to give out a message in a witty way, which would stay in people’s minds.” When a government authority tells the mass about directives, they won’t listen. Gururaj says, “It was expected that people would come out in large numbers in public. The film was released when Lockdown 5.0 and Unlock 1.0 came into effect.

‘Lockdown 5.0’, a three-minute film, directed by Gururaj S, a VFX artist, enforces an important message in a quick, breezy script. Shot remotely and with a lot of planning including Zoom calls and video calls, rehearsals and corrections, most of these films have simple storylines. 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. The lockdown has inspired many filmmakers to create interesting short films.

Malayalam short films scripts.pdf