Mumbai: The Content Hub event, organised and conceptualised by the Indiantelevision.com Group, was held on 25 April at The Lalit, Mumbai.
The fifth panel discussion was on the topic - Breathing Life into Cinema and was led by film critic journalist & author Mayank Shekhar, and the panelists were Cinepolis head of film distribution & programming Mayank Shroff, IN10 Media Network CEO - film division Vivek Krishnani, film producer Sunir Kheterpal and Zee Studios head-content Ashima Avasthi Chaudhuri.
Shekhar questioned the panelists about how content in cinema evolved, and where one finds themselves learning and learning in this respective field.
Shroff emphasized, “We have seen drastic, drastic changes post-pandemic, of course now everything's pre covid and post covid. So we've started releasing alternate content - Japanese. And not only Japanese but concerts or Korean films. The demand is, it has come and these movies are specifically working in the original language.”
Krishnani pointed out, “You saw certain kinds of content that kind of was the flavour of the season. And now the content, you see the flavour of content changing, also, because the audience is changing. And you've seen the audience also change their likes and dislikes, primarily now pushed faster because of the pandemic. So they are getting more and more difficult to please. And that's what I think we're here to discuss today is about what we can do to actually get this audience back into the cinemas?”
Kheterpal was of the view, “We don't know what is going to work. But we keep on hearing these things. Because that's how you are as human beings, naturally we are reacting to something which is happening around us. So I am a believer in the fact that we don't know what time what will break through. What is happening is everybody's looking for stories. It was far easier. 10 years back, you could find stories from anywhere in the world. But then one thing works. Everybody goes to that convenience and tries to find stories. So I think as an industry, we are becoming more aligned with what is happening all around the world.”
Chaudhuri elucidated, “We are literally restarting everything and all our learning from the time we've reopened, so that goes for cinema too. And I'm sure these guys will all agree that it is a complete restart.”
