It will be foolish to write the obituary of the cinema due to the arrival of OTT (Over the Top), as both mediums have distinct identities that will allow them to co-exist, said panellists at The Festival of Ideas hosted by NewsX, The Sunday Guardian (TSG), and India News, which are a part of the ITV Network and Prabha Khaitan Foundation. The Festival of Ideas is a melting pot where entrepreneurs, authors, thinkers, scholars, leaders, and luminaries come together under one roof to stimulate your mind and soul. Atul Tiwari, actor and filmmaker, said cinema is a group experience while OTT is an individual experience, but both have their own set of followers. It has been a boon for the cinema, as it has created more opportunities for individuals. It also increases the number of films, the volume of work, and the economy of the cinema. Tiwari also said that by the time India reaches a 5 trillion economy, OTT will reach 5 billion in terms of business. He further said the OTT became a medium for working-class people to spend their time at night while seeing content on the OTT.
Shriya Pilgaokar, a renowned actress, shared her journey and said, I have been fortunate to have such good opportunities as Mirzapur, Fan, Guilty Minds, etc. She said my decision to select films was only based on a good script. She said I feel sometimes a film doesn’t do well in theatres but does well on OTT. It shows that if the cinema is good, people will definitely support it, but if its content is not good, people will deny it. Similarly, a lot of people who do well on OTT get a boon in their film careers, and sometimes when an actor doesn’t perform well on the big screen, they perform exceptionally well on OTT, so OTT brings opportunities for every individual.
Suparn Verma, a filmmaker, said that OTT is the best form of writing long stories, just like novels. So it gives us cinema, which has much richer stories than television. Nowadays, our audience has become choosy; they only choose movies or series that have good content. That is why we can see the rise of pan-India films, as they put an end to the language barriers. So all regional films like South Indian, Bhojpuri, Bengali, etc. are now called Indian cinema.
