Imagine this: a pandemic that attacks the memory.

The streets are crowded with people meandering and confused. Lines form at the hospital for experimental treatments. Conspiracy theories claim the government has the cure. And two young lovers, desperate to escape the debilitating effects of the virus, are trying to figure out how to save not only their lives but their love.

Jack O’Donnell is a masked man trying to save his mind from the effects of a pandemic in Little Fish.

In this hour-long “Master Shot” episode, focusing on the new sci-fi love story Little Fish, I consider why memory is on so many artists’ minds right now.

And then I ask the Little Fish filmmaker himself: Chad Hartigan, the director of This Is Martin Bonner and Morris From America. We talk about what it was like to make a pandemic-focused movie just in time for a real pandemic; the themes emerging across Hartigan’s growing filmography; and how the secret of making great art is — wait for it — love.

Olive Cooke, star of Ready Player One and Sound of Metal, tests her boyfriend’s memory with careful questions in Little Fish.

Listen to our deep dive here: