Madhur Bhandarkar was almost done with his upcoming film India Lockdown when he had to stop everything due to the second Coronavirus wave. The National Award-winning filmmaker says he intended to send it to many prestigious film festivals but his plans were thrown into a tizzy.

“I wanted to send the film to Cannes and Venice film festivals, I missed the dates for both because of the lockdown. The editing also stopped, we didn’t know what to do,” he laments.

However, Bhandarkar is happy that he had enough time at hand before the second wave to work on the film.

“I am very fortunate that I had started shooting in January end, and completed most of the film in 27-28 days. We followed all Covid protocols. I shot with a crowd also, everything was taken care of. I completed most of it in one go,” says Bhandarkar, thanking his actors Prateik Babbar, Sai Tamhankar, Aahana Kumra for cooperating well. “They knew the subject I was dealing with. I was showing what happened in the first lockdown in 2020. It is a human story,” he adds.

The industry had again suffered losses due to the shutdown, considering a lot of releases and announced films had to put work on hold. The last day of the shoot before work shut down for Bhandarkar was March 9.

The Fashion (2008) director says the unlock has come as a big sigh of relief, with actors venturing out to resume shoot. He shared pictures of the post production work beginning again.

“The whole of April and May, we didn’t know what to do. My editor couldn’t come, the office was shut. In this crisis, you just had to sit at home. Now that work has opened up again, I am happy with the way my film is shaping up,” ends Bhandarkar.