Celebrated actor Manisha Koirala (“Bombay,” “1942: A Love Story,” “Khamoshi”) and filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane (“Udaan,” “Trapped”) discussed the evolving landscape between theatrical and streaming platforms during a session at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, where Koirala also revealed plans to write a comedy book about 1990s and 2000s actresses adapting to Gen Z culture.
“For me as an actor, be it for the big screen or web series, it’s the same amount of work that is needed, sincerity needed. The preparation, mind frame, everything is the same,” said Koirala, who recently starred in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s hit Netflix series “Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar.”
Motwane, who directed Prime Video’s “Jubilee” and Netflix’s “Sacred Games,” noted that streaming offers more creative flexibility. “The wonderful part of streaming is that you’re not stuck to saying with theatrical that okay, you have to make a movie two to two and a half hours. You have a story, you have a peg – this can be a movie, this can be 10 episode hour-long episodes over five seasons, this can be 20 minute episodes.”
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The filmmaker, whose debut feature “Udaan” screened at Cannes, revealed that “Sacred Games,” an adaptation of Vikram Chandra’s bestselling novel, served as a learning experience in series format. “Netflix said okay, here’s the book. We took the book and broke down the book. It took six months longer than it should have, but we figured it out. Understanding how this format works, what a cliffhanger is, why you need a cliffhanger at the end if you want people to jump to the next episode.”
Both agreed that streaming has opened more opportunities for diverse storytelling and roles for veteran actresses. “Thanks to the OTT [streaming] platforms, plus the audience also, even in cinema, the older actresses are doing meaty roles,” Koirala noted. “The space is there for them because the audience’s mind and heart has expanded.”
The filmmaker revealed that working in streaming has made him more efficient in feature filmmaking. “My learnings from ‘Sacred Games’ and ‘Jubilee’ actually helped me in features, because I can shoot much quicker now. We pulled off five pages a day. All of ‘Jubilee,’ which is 10 episodes, hour-long episodes, was shot in 90 days, including 10 lip sync songs.”
Motwane pointed out that India is still adapting to the showrunner format common in international series. “We still haven’t got used to the showrunner format in this country. We need to gestate this, we need for this to build a little bit more, and that’s how you’ll get a lot more new directors coming.”
The rise of private viewing on mobile devices has also impacted content consumption patterns in India, according to Motwane. “India is a country that adopted internet first through its phones, not through broadband. Most people’s first device of choice is their phone, which makes it private viewing.”
The session was curated by festival director Shekhar Kapur.
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