NEW DELHI: ‘Locke’, a British-American drama thriller written and directed by Steven Knight and featuring the harrowing experience of a man locked in a car for one night, was shot in just one week.

The film stars Tom Hardy as the main lead sitting in the car and talking on the mobile with other people. The voices are those of Tom Holland, Olivia Colman, Andrew Scott, Ruth Wilson, Ben Daniels and Alice Lowe.

Released recently in the United States and the United Kingdom, the film was shown out of competition at the 70th Venice International Film Festival. It has now been acquired for the Venice Film Festival.

The film is the story of a single eventful night in the life of Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy, using a Welsh accent), a man on the verge of losing it all (his job, his wife, his sanity), It is entirely set within the confines of a souped up BMW driving on the M6 motorway in England. Locke is a construction foreman who leaves an important job in Birmingham and drives down to London. Along the way, he tries to settle stressful personal and professional problems on his mobile phone while having imaginary conversations with his long deceased father.

Shot in just a mere week after one week of rehearsals, Knight had Hardy acted out the 90-page script in its entirety for every take with cameras stationed both inside and outside the vehicle that was being pulled along on the back of a low-loader, where Knight was stationed.

Those who – as part of the script – called in to talk to Locke, including Olivia Coleman as Locke's mistress and "Sherlock" star Andrew Scott as his work subordinate did so in real-time from a conference room nearby.

Knight revealed in a media meet that the short shooting schedule was not a fun challenge they set for themselves -- the crunch was out of necessity. The two had wanted to work with each other for four or so years before Knight pitched "Locke" to Hardy. But by the time the opportunity arose for the two friends to collaborate, Hardy's schedule was jam-packed (the "Dark Knight Rises" star currently has three films in post-production phase, including George Miller's eagerly anticipated "Mad Max: Fury Road"). Hardy could only spare two weeks.

Despite the tight shooting schedule and challenging nature of the shoot, Knight called the film "charmed from the beginning."