On March 15, Australian director Luke Eve was set to marry Spanish actor María Albinana in Valencia, Spain.
But the couple were forced to call off their wedding after the rapid spread of COVID-19 sent Spain into a strict lockdown in which people were only allowed to leave their homes for food and medicine.
The couple ended up stuck in their apartment with Eve's mother Karen, whose two-week trip from Australia spiralled into a multi-month stay.
Instead of spending lockdown as many others have — baking bread, knitting or making TikToks — this creative couple decided to turn their lives into a web series.
"There were only three of us in the house and a mobile phone. That was all we had," Eve says.
Armed with an iPhone 10 and funded by Screen Australia, the three of them made Cancelled, a 10-episode web series, recently released on Facebook.
There is now a raft of projects coming out about the pandemic, but filmed as the new reality of lockdowns was still unfolding, Cancelled deftly and authentically portrays both the tragedy and unexpected comedy of living in pandemic times.
"I know that people are sometimes a little bit sick of COVID stories ... but I think it's not your standard COVID story," says Eve.
'A family in lockdown'
Eve, the creator of web series Low Life and TV series High Life, and Albinana, a trilingual writer, director and actor (who is also the coordinator of the series section at the Valencia International Film Festival) initially thought of making a web series that unfolded in their bed every night.
"I think we just had the need to create something and do it together," says Albinana.
She says another idea that "sparked" Cancelled was the different ways they each responded to the lockdown: while she immediately began making exercise videos for friends and family, Eve was glued to the infection numbers coming out each day.
"It's set in the pandemic because this is what we're living, but it could have been set in any other crisis — because it's about the way you react to a crisis," Albinana says.
The series has a classic sitcom set-up — a couple and a mother-in-law unexpectedly forced to live in close quarters — but the backdrop is far from conventional, with Spain hit hard by COVID-19.
Eve says: "It was hard not to be affected by that loss and that sadness. And so we wanted to sort of honour that."
'A good escape'
They were four weeks into lockdown when they got the go-ahead from Screen Australia, but first Eve had to get his mother on board with their scheme.
"I think she was kind of excited by it," Eve recalls.
"It gave us all something to do rather than go insane in the lockdown over here, which was very, very strict compared to other parts of the world ... so it was a good escape."
As his mother Karen puts it: "What else can you do when you're in a pandemic?"
Eve and Albinana ended up writing all 10 episodes — which are between eight and 14 minutes in length — in eight days.
"Because we had lived it, or we were currently still living it, it sort of came reasonably easily," Eve says.
But both Eve and Albinana say the process of filming was at times stressful and emotionally challenging.
"There were scenes that we would do and then we would have a bit of a cry [afterwards]," Eve says.
Alongside directing the series, Eve had to be the director of photography, setting up all the shots and placing his trust in his first-time camera people — his fiancee and his mother.
"I'm not an actor, so I would do a take where I'd be giving it all and I'm crying or something — and then I'd get the camera back only to see my head's cut off [in the shot]," he laughs.
Real relationship dramas
Over the series, and as time collapses in on itself in interminable lockdown, we see the trio tussle over seating arrangements, mismatched moods and ultimately innocuous coughs.
Eve describes the web series as "very autobiographical" with much of these events and interactions based on real life.
At one point, Cancelled slips into documentary: the footage of Eve driving Karen to the airport, and their tear-filled goodbyes, is from the actual event.
"There were no behind the scenes, we were behind the scenes and in front of the scenes," says Albinana.
She says there were times when they hesitated, unsure of whether they wanted to expose all parts of their lives to on-screen treatment.
"[But I thought] I'm just a human being with the rest of the human beings that have the same exact problem," Albinana says.
"And I'm verbalising what everyone's going through and that sometimes we're too scared to say or it's very private. [So] you just go there — this is our relationship and this is what we go through. And it's not easy."
Eve says the couple were "fractured" by lockdown, which the viewer sees play out over the series.
"We really kind of bared our souls there for a little bit. It does go quite dark, and it does really tell the tale of a couple that really struggles with their time in isolation," Eve says.
Making sense of 2020
The final episode of Cancelled was released two weeks ago, and each episode has now clocked over 200,000 views.
Albinana says the authenticity of their series is why it has connected with so many viewers.
In one episode, Eve bursts in on Albinana having a moment of reprieve in the bathroom and their exchange encapsulates a feeling that is quintessentially 2020:
Luke: "What's wrong?"
Maria: "Nothing ... and everything."
On Facebook, the comments section of each episode is littered with impassioned responses in English and Spanish from viewers across the globe — including people who have also had to put their wedding plans on hold as a result of COVID-19.
"When they watched the show they realised why they were going through certain things, and they realised that they weren't the only ones," says Karen.
For Eve, making the series helped him come to terms with his experiences. Like many of us, he spent the first month of the pandemic buried in newspapers, articles and magazines, looking for answers and information.
"I was trying to hold on to something, to make sense of what we were experiencing and it was kind of throwing me in some ways," he says.
"Maybe this [series] is a way of trying to make sense of it."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMib2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA4LTA3L2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLWxvY2tkb3duLXdlYi1zZXJpZXMtY2FuY2VsbGVkLWRyYW1hLWNvbWVkeS1wYW5kZW1pYy8xMjUyNTY4ONIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjUyNTY4OA?oc=5
2020-08-06 18:47:00Z
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