Frankly, I want to hide under the table, because there will be a second Cyclone Amphan—of 'lockdown films' i.e. films made during the pandemic, with social distancing and all. Fortunately, I've seen two good lockdown shorts, Gautham Vasudev Menon's Karthik Dial Seytha Yenn (The Number Karthik Dialled; Tamil) and Amitabha Chaterji's Porijayi (Migratory; Bengali). And many have seen Family, Prasoon Pandey's #StayAtHome short, with all-India actors, fronted by Amitabh Bachchan.

Among the first off the block is the beautifully pensive Porijayi, a seven-minute short. Chaterji's Ami o Manohar (Manohar and I) was a brilliant debut film that won the FFSI KR Mohanan Award for best debut film at the International Film Festival of Kerala in 2018, when I was on its jury. Chaterji said he made Porijayi "in a day"—over 24 hours, during the lockdown. He wrote the script on April 23, shot the same night for an hour, and finished post-production on April 24. It's a relationship drama, with a couple seemingly at a dead end. Kalboisakhi, the unseasonal thundershowers in April in the East, is the only protagonist you see in the film; the human players are only voices on the phone. But more on it anon.