by Drew Gula
A post-Coronavirus world will undoubtedly be better…and also different. We’re already seeing blockbuster films releasing on streaming services, or in limited theaters with limited tickets. And that’s not even talking about the sudden spike of drive-in movie showings.
COVID-19 changed how film production works. It’s also changing how filmmakers think about films, shaping the sort of stories they’re interested in telling.
I mean, we’ve all got firsthand experience with things like quarantine, supply shortages, etc. And that is prime real estate for pandemic films, particularly among indie filmmakers who can take bigger creative risks on unique film ideas.
To give a little bit of a preview of what to expect, here are the 4 most interesting upcoming indie films about pandemics.
Revitalizing A Familiar Genre
Of course, pandemic films are far from a new thing. Most people have heard of 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead. In fact, it’s rarer to find someone who isn’t familiar with them.
Similarly, you’ll find related films in subgenres all over the place, from thriller to SciFi to comedy. But there is something strange and a little bit uncomfortable about pandemic films in the aftermath of the Coronavirus.
Humans are drawn to familiar stories. (That’s part of why most films, novels, games, etc. all revolve around variations of the same basic plotlines.) And there is currently nothing more familiar than living through a pandemic or global disaster.
For some people, pandemic films might be “too close to comfort” for years to come. But the sudden shift in filmmaking has become the basis for many new stories, and it’s exciting to look forward to how these ideas will take shape in the coming months and/or years.
Now, on to the films!
76 Days
At the start of 2020, Wuhan, China became “ground zero” of the Coronavirus outbreak. The city spent 76 days under government-enforced lockdown, and the directorial efforts of Weixi Chen, Hao Wu, and an anonymous third person documented events from inside four different Wuhan hospitals.
The Chinese government didn’t sanction or even know about the project. And while the documentary may not uncover all of the conspiracy theories about the origins of the pandemic, 76 Days puts a human face — and, more importantly, human emotions — to the people affected first by the Coronavirus.
While 76 Days did premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, the movie has managed to stay under the radar for a lot of people. Assuming somebody picks up the piece, it will be a can’t-miss film that highlights the chaos and panic of the COVID-19 outbreak unlike anything we’ve seen so far.
Ayar
Okay, so AYAR technically already premiered. But this title was imagined, created, and released all within the confines of Coronavirus quarantine. The fact that it’s from the mind of Floyd Russ — the director behind the now-on-Netflix documentary Zion — is just a little more reason to check out this film.
During a pandemic, it’s no surprise that indie films would have advantages over big-budget titles. Smaller productions have less people and more flexibility. And the freedom to document and share a film from home allows for projects like Ayar to pick up an audience and succeed.
The truth is that there’s something particularly fascinating about a pandemic movie filmed during a pandemic. And Russ won’t be the first director to tell a personal story of what happened in 2020.
Homemade
Is it a structured anthology? A TV series? A short film collection? Netflix’s Homemade delivered something poignant and new. The series put a variety of people into the role of director, letting them tell unique stories on a small scale.
The series was imagined, produced, and released during quarantine. Each episode gives a look into the life and mind of a public figure we know, but the shared experiences of a pandemic creates a new level of connection with these people. Homemade is an interesting take on the old anthology concept, and it feels like a perfect match for the year of 2020.
And yes, the fact that it is serialized means the door is still open for future seasons. So, technically, future episodes fit the bill of “upcoming short films.”
Scenes from an Empty Church
Onur Tukel is another director worth watching. When he announced a film about two priests struggling during a pandemic, people quickly paid attention.
Scenes from an Empty Church isn’t quite the satirical piece people familiar with Tukel’s work might expect. Instead, the film very much deals with one big topic that many of us have faced during quarantine: finding (and holding onto) a sense of meaning in a changed world.
Tukel has also been a big advocate for Coronavirus-centric films. In a piece from IndieWire, Turkel pushed the idea that COVID-19 has filled the world with a new set of stories that need to be told by filmmakers.
Exploring A Shared Struggle
The best filmmakers are the ones who tell stories we can all relate to in one way or another. So it’s no surprise that COVID-19 has influenced creative people around the world.
A global pandemic is a fundamentally shared experience. And while 2020 has been a difficult time for billions of us, it’s also a unifying event. We all endured quarantine together, and when the rest of the world seems to be falling apart, that kind of connection creates empathy.
And empathy leads to powerful and emotional stories that we can experience together. For some indie filmmakers, that means that the events of 2020 will be a source of inspiration for years to come.
Pandemic stories aren’t a new topic, and they certainly won’t disappear once we’ve finally escaped the Coronavirus. But these 4 indie projects are just a sample of what we should expect to see in the months and years ahead.
Drew Gula is the copywriter at Soundstripe, a company that produces filmmaking resources like royalty free epic music and storyboard templates.
