{"id":2062620,"date":"2025-10-01T18:09:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2062620"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:09:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:09:47","slug":"has-enough-time-passed-for-covid-era-to-act-as-film-backdrop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/has-enough-time-passed-for-covid-era-to-act-as-film-backdrop\/","title":{"rendered":"Has enough time passed for COVID era to act as film backdrop?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Vancouver filmmaker<\/a> Ben Immanuel\u2019s new Vancouver-shot movie Are We Done Now? proves that tragedy, plus time, not only equals comedy, it equals thought-provoking stories about connection and resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t call it a COVID<\/a> film,\u201d said Immanuel, who also wrote the film. \u201cI get why some people go, \u2018Oh God, I don\u2019t want to watch a movie about COVID<\/a>.\u2019 But our movie is not about tests and masks and all that stuff. It\u2019s about just what was going on in the world, especially through the lens of Gen Z and Millennials.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about people trying to connect, and the difficulty of connecting, and how that is exacerbated by these new circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out now on VOD, the Vancouver-shot<\/a> film focuses on a therapist (Gabrielle Miller) and a diverse handful of young-adult clients (Elliot Ramsey, Natalie Farrow and Favour Onwuka) who have agreed to take part in a documentary that sets out to understand the relationship between the pandemic and mental health.<\/p>\n

\"<\/span><\/div>\n

Vancouver\u2019s Ben Immanuel directs, writes and co-stars in the new film Are We Done Now? Set in the COVID times the film, out now on VOD, is a funny, heartfelt reminder of the importance of human connection. Photo: Angel Lynne.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese characters represent real people, and I just want them to feel seen. And the hope is, that if these specific characters are seen, then other people are going to identify with those characters, and they\u2019re going to feel seen,\u201d said Immanuel, who plays the documentary filmmaker in the movie.<\/p>\n

Through the shooting of the documentary, the characters peel back their own emotional layers on their way to personal insight and an understanding and acceptance of the world they move through.<\/p>\n

It sounds deep, and at times it is, but it is also funny, heartfelt and very relatable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just tired of the cynicism. And so much cynicism has built up over the past five years since this whole change in the world, maybe this film can be a tiny bit of an antidote for that poison,\u201d said Immanuel, who began shooting the film in the early stages of the pandemic and continued to do so throughout.<\/p>\n

The initial idea for a film set during COVID came up while Immanuel was having coffee with a friend. As quickly as you can say, \u201ctall skinny latte\u201d Immanuel dismissed the idea. But it seemed that it didn\u2019t completely leave his mind as he returned to the topic while chatting over Zoom with his Haven Acting Studio students. Through those conversations, Immanuel warmed to the idea. But as it turns out, those with the money were not so hot on the concept.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got close with a couple of streamers, but ultimately we were told, \u2018You know, we don\u2019t know what to do with this, because nobody wants to really look at COVID now, and when we\u2019re done with it, nobody\u2019s going to want to look at it then,\u2019\u201d said Immanuel, adding one executive said it would work in 10 years\u2019 time. \u201cOf course, that\u2019s not what you want to hear as a filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward and Are We Done Now?, after some festival screenings, is in wide release on VOD.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it interesting, and I\u2019m going to be interested to see what people\u2019s feelings are,\u201d said Slocan Valley resident Miller (Corner Gas) about setting the story in a time of lockdowns. \u201cWatching it brought back a lot of feelings and memories that I didn\u2019t even remember that I had because that time was so intense. But it was kind of lovely. The film does have so much humour in it, and it\u2019s kind of refreshing to be able to look at it and have a bit of laughter around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The part of therapist Pamela Givers was written for Miller, and it embraces and fully utilizes Miller\u2019s charming approach to comedy, which Immanuel says is \u201cvintage Mary Tyler Moore,\u201d in that Miller is deft at finding the serious beats in comedy and the funny beats in something serious.<\/p>\n

\u201cI jumped at the opportunity,\u201d said Miller who has worked with Immanuel many times over the years and counts him as a friend. \u201cI was really excited to do something creative during that time. When everything feels like it\u2019s falling apart, it\u2019s really great to have the grounding of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of the story about a documentary filmmaker interviewing a group of young people and their therapist began with Immanuel\u2019s own experience of holding Zoom acting classes during the lockdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of conversations and a lot of difficult conversations, and I was enlightened, you know, in many, many ways during that time,\u201d said Immanuel.<\/p>\n

\"<\/span><\/div>\n

In the new film Are We Done Now?, out on VOD, Favour Onwuka plays Mercy one of three characters who a documentary film director (Ben Immanuel) follows as they live through COVID and try to make sense of things with the help of a therapist (Gabrielle Miller) who is also struggling emotionally during the dark times of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

In the film, a young Black woman named Mercy (Onwuka) struggles to share her lived experiences with her online acting class the day after George Floyd was murdered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole scene about that character being in class the day after George Floyd was killed, I think that, in many ways, inspired me to actually make this film. Because that happened,\u201d said Immanuel. \u201cThe day after George Floyd was killed, we had a class, and everyone gathered, and there was like six or seven white faces and people looking sad and kind of shook up. And then there was Favour, it was a very loaded moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immanuel went on to say that Onwuka approached the situation with \u201csuch strength and grace,\u201d that he had to put it into his script.<\/p>\n

Also, under the heading of life dictating art is Farrow\u2019s character Lennon\u2019s driving goal to get TikTok-famous and pull in one million followers. This was something Farrow actually stated when she joined the Zoom acting classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m there to support, but I\u2019m also kind of rolling my eyes and thinking, that\u2019s an actor\u2019s goal, to get a million followers?\u201d said Imanuel. \u201cI don\u2019t really understand what TikTok is, so I looked at it, and I looked at what she was doing on it, and she was doing these acting videos where she was playing these scenes, and I thought, God damn, she\u2019s really good \u2026 Not everyone on TikTok is just an exhibitionist or self-indulgent. There are people who are offering something, they\u2019re giving something. And she was giving a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other conversations in the film dig into gender and the experiences of a gay character named Jayme (Ramsey).<\/p>\n

\u201cElliot is not somebody to shut down the old white guy,\u201d said Immanuel about Ramsey. \u201cHe\u2019s going to listen and give you a chance and have a real conversation. And I really appreciated that, and I wanted him to have a voice so people could just hear that.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery sort of woke Millennial is not out to take your head off. People just want to be heard \u2026 I was so glad to give Elliot free reign to speak his truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Pamela the therapist, well, she is supporting her clients, but once away from her laptop\u2019s camera, it becomes apparent that she too is struggling with the lack of connections in her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re people too,\u201d said Miller about showing the cracks in the therapist\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Miller hopes the movie will remind viewers of the need for human connection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are self-isolating through our screens and social media,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThe way we connect has changed since COVID and the world today has changed dramatically. The isolation you see in this film is a reminder that we need to make sure we continue to connect, to not emotionally isolate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that isolation, that feeling of isolation, it started as a little crack that has continued to spread. And we need to fill that crack with gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dgee@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vancouver filmmaker Ben Immanuel\u2019s new Vancouver-shot movie Are We Done Now? proves that tragedy, plus time, not only equals comedy, it equals thought-provoking stories about connection and resilience. \u201cWe don\u2019t call it a COVID film,\u201d said Immanuel, who also wrote the film. \u201cI get why some people go, \u2018Oh God, I don\u2019t want to watch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2062621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[384883,355249,355180,384887,384885,384882,384886,384884],"class_list":["post-2062620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ben-immanuel","tag-covid","tag-documentary-filmmaker","tag-elliot-ramsey","tag-favour-onwuka","tag-gabrielle-miller","tag-immanuel","tag-natalie-farrow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Has-enough-time-passed-for-COVID-era-to-act-as.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2062622,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062620\/revisions\/2062622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2062621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}