2020 Unwind

2020 was about praying to WiFi gods, braving dystopia of stand-up comedy on Zoom, writes Anu Menon

"Some shows, the whole audience decides to mute themselves, and you feel like you are performing in a void. Except that the void has people laughing hysterically but silently, sending virtual claps. It's dystopian."

It took a pandemic to truly understand that obstacles create the path, writes Sharan Sharma, director of Gunjan Saxena

"We couldn’t put a super below the film, saying: low quality product due to COVID. A film lives on forever, so we would not settle for a compromised process."

Rise of streaming platforms in 2020 allowed me to identify, discover new talent sitting at home, writes Mukesh Chhabra

"I have taken the initiative to open offices all over India, in different states. The online medium is perfect for me and my team to discover talent in every nook and corner, not only in India but all around the world."

If there is anything 2020 has taught us, it is to not get too comfortable, writes Scam 1992 actor Shreya Dhanwanthary

"It sounds ridiculous, privileged, and downright offensive when I say that this year has been wonderful for me," writes Shreya Dhanwanthary.

Pandemic forced the industry to shut shop; filmmakers like me have lived with this uncertainty all along, writes Devashish Makhija

"For filmmakers driven by an artistic impulse, and not market mechanics, the pandemic changed absolutely nothing."

Everything I consumed on screen as an escape from 2020 helped me evolve into a filmmaker, writes Shefali Shah

"This lock-up gave me time to prep rigorously as a filmmaker. And just like that, I was ready to shoot a film as a director. The more I worked on it, the more convinced I was that this blunder had to be made."