India is steadily welcoming the idea of short film formats, and one man instrumental in pushing production houses to take the leap is director Anurag Kashyap. The short filmmaker-turned-director is strongly batting for the short format to be taken seriously as demonstrated by his active involvement with Viacom 18 and PVR Cinemas. The ‘India Is’ initiative with the former sees the shorts of five emerging directors being showcased on Viacom’s YouTube channel.
On the go
Rudradeep Datta, Head of Marketing and Operations, says Viacom 18’s move was based on the idea of viewing shorts on hand-held devices. “We live in a time where people are constantly looking out for ways to consume entertainment quickly and easily. A short on the internet is so easy and cost-effective and helps these filmmakers grow. The short format is the medium of the future.” PVR’s independent film initiative, Director’s Rare, is also working on similar lines, and Kashyap plays a major role here as well. “We will be launching a package of short films curated by Kashyap on July 12, which will be screened at cinema halls. Thanks to technology and awareness, we’re starting to see strong improvements in the quality of short films today as opposed to three years ago, when it was an amateur’s club. We still have a long way to go when it comes to offbeat scripts, but we’re finding a huge talent pool here,” says Shiladitya Bora, alternate programming and marketing at PVR Cinemas.
Closer home
The short film is also meeting with roaring success in Chennai but more as a stepping stone to a major feature production. Some of the ‘moolah’ rakers at the box office over the last two years are courtesy emerging directors who started out as short-filmmakers—director of Kadhalil Sodhapavadu Eppadi, Balaji Mohan, director of Pizza, Karthik Subbaraj, and producer of Pizza and Soodhu Kavvum, CV Kumar. “I think it doubles as a launchpad as well as a visual reference for a producer to get an idea of what kind of a filmmaker you are. It’s practically a resume for the film world, and slogging for more than two years as an assistant director is quite optional now,” Mohan adds. Subbaraj, who was also the winner of Kalaignar TV’s short film competition, ‘Nalaya Iyyakunar,’ believes that the television industry will have to start embracing the short film format to replace their 30 minute soaps. Till then, online forums and festivals like the recently held Top 10 Talkies Short Film Festival at Four Frames Preview Theatre continue to expand the scope of the medium.