Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paolo Sorrentino and Natalia Beristáin contribute to a diverting but indulgent anthology about lockdown life
Here is a short film anthology with a luxury gloss and prestige sheen, curated for
Netflix by the Chilean director Pablo Larraín, his brother Juan de Dios Larraín and Italian producer Lorenzo Mieli. They invited 17 film-makers from around the world to make short films during lockdown about the theme of lockdown. Larraín himself contrives an amusing piece about an ageing lothario in a care home who contacts an old flame on Skype while his long-suffering nurse has to sit impassively in the background.
Some film-makers have stuck toughly to the spirit of lockdown, with lo-fi pieces shot on their smartphones within their own four walls. Sebastian Schipper creates something starring himself with TikTok-style visual gags about doppelgangers and triplegangers. Rungano Nyoni gives us a wacky
comedy about the texting life of a separated couple forced to share a small flat. In his Rome apartment, Paolo Sorrentino quirkily imagines a love story between action figures representing the pope and the
Queen, squabbling about what they want to watch on TV: The Two Popes or The Crown (both Netflix shows, as it happens).