Monday, November 27, 2017

48th IFFI 2017-‘Mastering A New Reality’ –Content is the King






Karan Johar, TV Czarina Ekta Kapoor and Sudhanshu Vats (Group CEO, Viacom18) attended the Panel Discussion with the theme ‘Mastering A New Reality’ ,extensively spoke about the growing emergence of online content providers, considered to be a threat to cinema and movie business.  Moderated by Ronojoy Banerjee, Principal Correspondent, CNBC TV 18, the session was truly invigorating and inspiring for the crowded auditorium. While Ronojoy started off the conversation by pointing out that content is the king, the meaning of that is still getting reinforced in many ways. The digital journey is quite exciting. The broadband penetration has been going up and is growing by 30 percent every year. The real revolution is taking place in terms of mobile handsets. By 2021, 80 percent of mobile traffic will be video led. Profitability in movie making is probably at an all-time low. With more competition coming from online content providers like Netflix and Amazon, how has moviemaking as a process changed? The general standard of cinema has taken a quantum leap in terms of narrative, technology, etc. everyone has upped their game. “We used to be the mothership of entertainment and I can soon see it becoming a stepchild. That’s what really scares me as a filmmaker. I know most of us will be enforced and empowered by the digital world.. Now when good films are being sent to festivals for just finding digital platforms for it to release on, it sort of breaks my heart because cinema used to be the only platform giving us the community feeling of watching and experiencing the film,” A Panel member said.


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