The start of the pandemic is now more than three years in the past, and Japan’s first state of emergency, which began in April 2020, feels like ancient history.

Yet, as Yukiko Mishima’s docudrama “Alone Together” so knowingly illustrates, that dark period when fear of the COVID-19 virus was rife had a profound impact on lives and psyches around the world.

Inspired by Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s 2020 short “Visit,” which captured the mood of the pandemic with humor and melancholy, Mishima decided to make a similar film for Japan. Enlisting 20 actors, she remotely shot their lives in lockdown.