India Lockdown is a 2022 Indian

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

-language

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Madhur Bhandarkar Madhur Bhandarkar (born 26 August 1968) is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer. In 2016, Bhandarkar was honoured with the Padma Shri, the Indian honours system, fourth highest civilian honour, by the Government of India. He i ...

and produced by P J Motion Pictures and

Pen India Limited Pen Studios (formerly Popular Entertainment Network) is an Indian film production and distribution company established by Dr. Jayantilal Gada on 31 March 1987. Based in Mumbai, it mainly produces and distributes Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films. ...

along with Bhandarkar Entertainment. The film stars an ensemble cast of

Shweta Basu Prasad Shweta Basu Prasad (born 11 January 1991) is an Indian actress known for her works in television, Hindi cinema, Telugu cinema and Tamil cinema. She won the National Film Award for Best Child Artist for her role in ''Makdee'' (2002). After ''Iq ...

Aahana Kumra Aahana S Kumra is an Indian actress. She is known for her television debut in Sony Entertainment Television's '' Yudh'' with Amitabh Bachchan and also for her lead role in the TV series '' Agent Raghav - Crime Branch'' with Sharad Kelkar, follo ...

Prateik Babbar Prateik Smita Patil(born Prateik Babbar; 28 November 1986), is an Indian actor who predominantly appears in Hindi films. The son of late actress Smita Patil and former MP and actor Raj Babbar, he began his career as a production assistant befo ...

Sai Tamhankar Sai Tamhankar (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, əiː t̪aːmɦəɳkəɾ born 25 June 1986) is an Indian film and television actress known for her work primarily in Marathi language, Marathi, as well as in Hindi language, Hindi films. She h ...

Prakash Belawadi Prakash Belawadi is an Indian actor, director and screenwriter, who works predominately in English, Kannada and Hindi theatre, films and television. He is also a theatre teacher, activist and a journalist. He hails from Bengaluru. He has parti ...

and

Saanand Verma Saanand Verma is an Indian film and television actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the the ...

. The film was scheduled for a world premiere at the

52nd International Film Festival of India The 52nd International Film Festival of India opened on 20 November 2021 with ''The King of All the World'' (''El Rey de Todo El Mundo'') by Carlos Saura in Goa. Like the 51st edition, this edition was held in a hybrid format which combined onl ...

. The film was commercially released on

ZEE5 ZEE5 or Z5 is an Indian subscription video on demand and over-the-top streaming service, owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on We ...

on December 2, 2022. The movie deals with the repercussions of the

COVID-19 lockdown in India On the evening of 24 March 2020, the Government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21days, limiting the movement of the entire 1.38billion (138 crores) population of India as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic in India. ...

and how the people of the country struggled through it.

Plot

The film showcases four parallel stories – a father-daughter duo stuck in different cities, a sex worker and her troubles, a migrant worker with bare resources, and a pilot.

Cast

as Mehrunissa *

as Moon Alves *

as Madhav *

as Phoolmati *

as M Nageshwar Rao * Tahura Mansuri as Meenu *Salim Siddiqui as Rafeeq Bhai * Pankaj Jha Kashyap as Guddu * Chanchlesh Singh as Kishan * Zarin Shihab as Palak

Production

The shoot of the film started after the 2020 lockdown. The shoots were wrapped by March 2021. The film secured a certification from the

Central Board of Film Certification The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is a statutory Motion picture content rating system, film-certification body in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of ...

in October 2021.

Marketing

The teaser trailer of the movie was released on November 8. when it was trending on X, Formerly known as

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

leading to panic among the netizens in India of another lockdown being imposed by the Indian government.

Release

It was announced in November 2022 that film would have a direct-to-digital release via

Reception

Anuj Kumar for ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

'' wrote, "Madhur's treatment of subjects is usually high-pitched and he paints his scenarios with broad strokes, but here, he has roped in a cast of competent actors to convey what is not there on the page." Shubhra Gupta of ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932 by P. Varadarajulu Naidu. It is headquartered in Noida, owned by the ''Indian Express Group''. It was later taken over by Ramnath Goenka. In 1999, eight y ...

'' rated the movie 1.5/5 and wrote "...an older woman rescues a younger one from the flesh trade. The rest is just banal story-telling, with little new to say." Zinia Bandyopadhyay of ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media, Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' laun ...

'' gave the film a rating of 2/5 and wrote "Bhandarkar is an excellent director, and there is no doubt about that. But probably in his attempt to weave the story together, he missed other aspects like a compelling background score, or even performances, for that matter!" Ronak Kotecha of ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'' rated the film 3/5 and wrote "More than 2 years after the first countrywide lockdown in India, director Madhur Bhandarkar and his writers (Amit Joshi and Aradhana Sah) have come up with a compilation of stories that are real and relatable."

References

External links

* * {{Bollywood Hungama title, india-lockdown
''India Lockdown''
on

*
India Lockdown
' on Masti Online Indian drama films 2020s Hindi-language films Films directed by Madhur Bhandarkar Indian films about the COVID-19 pandemic Films about prostitution in India