Elisabeth Moss, Carey Mulligan, and more stars on coronavirus, #MeToo, and the importance of film festivals

2020 and the coronavirus pandemic it has wrought have changed many things, with films and film festivals being no exception.

The pandemic and how it has changed the perception of movies that have come out this year was on the minds of the participants of Sunday night's AFI Fest: Indie Contenders virtual panel, which featured some of the year's buzziest performers, including (deep breath!): Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Rachel Brosnahan (I'm Your Woman), Winston Duke (Nine Days), Julia Garner (The Assistant), Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman), Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man and Shirley), Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman), and Andy Samberg (Palm Springs).

Moss, whose film The Invisible Man about an unseen foe was one of the last films to screen in theaters before the pandemic shutdown, said she definitely feels like her movie plays differently now. "I think that's kind of what we do with everything, right? I think whenever we watch something we tend to find whatever [circumstance]... we try to find ourselves or people we know in it," she said.

In the case of Samberg's time-looping rom-com Palm Springs, he said he feels like the film is more of an antidote of sorts to the hectic year. "The world is in such a toilet right now," he said. "What we made was to take your mind off it for a second and feel good, and think about things, too, but you leave with a different conversation maybe than some of the heavier stuff [that's come out]."

In Nine Days, Duke plays Will, a man tasked with interviewing candidates for the opportunity to be born. He spends his time watching and taking notes on many different screens of the lives of people he's selected. Duke said he thought his experience on the film was over when he wrapped production, but then the pandemic hit.

"I thought the idea of being quarantined in a house by myself watching the lives of different people through small screens and living this myopic existence was over after we shot. I thought that was it, and I'd be able to shed that character and go back to regular life, and within six months, we were back at it," he said, laughing. The Black Panther actor explained that he's experienced the loss of loved ones, fatigue, and the trauma of George Floyd's death this year, and he's had to "ground myself in the fact that it's really beautiful to just be alive."

It wasn't just the coronavirus that was on people's minds, though. Two of the stars — Garner and Mulligan — appear in films that feel like direct commentary on the #MeToo movement.

In Garner's film, she plays an assistant in the film industry who works for a Harvey Weinstein-esque figure, although he's never named directly. "The thing that I love is how The Assistant was told," Garner said. "Jane is not the one getting sexually assaulted. The movie isn't just about sexual abuse, it's about abuse in general and culture in a workspace or in general and how toxic it is. That's why I felt this story was really important."

Mulligan likened her film, which is about a woman who attempts to right some wrongs in her past by living a double life in the dark of night, to Neapolitan ice cream that's been poisoned. "By the time you realize what's happening, it's a very different film," she said. "And I think it's very purposeful to tell the story in that way." Mulligan and her Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell discussed the #MeToo movement when making the film, but agreed that the story was more universal. "These are really conversations that have been going on for millennia, and it's fantastic to make a platform for that," she explained.

Of course, it wouldn't be an indie panel if talk of independent films — and the festivals that foster those films — didn't factor into the conversation. The group agreed that festivals such as AFI Fest were vital to independent films and even to their own careers. "It's such an incredible opportunity for different kinds of stories and representations and I wouldn't be here without them," Moss said.

Brosnahan ended the conversation by comparing the making of indies with the experience of a film festival, and with a pointed word of advice to studio heads. "It feels like a really special continuation of getting to make and share independent film," she said, adding, "It's so amazing that four of the eight people here are here with films directed by women. It's worth noting that those four are also women, and it's so so so important that men in positions of influence are also working with female directors so that they continue to get platforms like this, but not just this, so that they continue to get [opportunities] that go beyond these independent film festivals, which are platforms that they have been celebrated in and amplified in, but that hasn't always translated into the studio world."

AFI Fest virtually kicked off this year's event on Oct. 15 and runs through Thursday.

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