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Corona could hardly be more timely as director Mostafa Keshvari touts his trapped-in-an-elevator drama as the first COVID-19 movie of the coronavirus era, The Hollywood Reporter reports. 

"The idea came to me when I was in an elevator reading news about Chinese tourists being attacked, and I thought I'm going to make a movie in an elevator," Keshvari tells The Hollywood Reporter on Monday. The thriller, shot on a soundstage in Vancouver and already edited and ready for sale, uses the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, as a symbol to explore fear and racism among trapped apartment tenants.

Corona follows six unlikely neighbors stranded in their building's elevator at the first stages of the COVID-19 crisis. They quickly suspect a seventh neighbor, a Chinese newcomer played by Traei Tsai, of having the coronavirus and likely to infect them after she also boards the elevator.

Corona was shot handheld in one take for realism, and Keshvari encouraged his cast to improvise lines from his script to underline their fright at being both trapped in an elevator and fearing possible coronavirus infection. "You see the rawness of the characters. They talk over each other and their fear becomes real," the director says.