Short Films are the future of Indian Cinema

by Biscoot Bajao Biscoot is India’s first offline app distribution

Indian cinema has always been fascinating. With the varied cultural backgrounds and different states, each part of the nation has something unique to deliver. Whether it’s mythology or history, or a masala Bollywood flick, or even hard- hitting documentaries, this country delivers it all. And the newest trend that has picked up pace over the past few years is short films. While they have always been around, they did not acquire this amount of popularity in the past.

Earlier short films were based on some agenda or was meant for delivering a social message, thus they weren’t considered entertaining enough by the audience who considered films as a mean of breaking into their monotonous everyday lives. And even if they were meant to entertain, no distributor was interested in short films, as they weren’t crowd-pullers. From the business aspect too, exhibitors would want films that would keep the audience engaged for at least one and a half hour. Thus, short films did not get the correct audience that they needed. The internet was a revolutionary platform for short films, as these films finally found a mean for reaching out to the masses. With people being able to watch short films online for free, their popularity increased. With successful mainstream directors like Anurag Kashyap and Sujoy Ghosh making short films, they came more and more into people’s notice. Suddenly, everywhere short films were being shared among networks, and finally they were getting the recognition they deserved.

With portals like YouTube allowing content creators the chance to monetize their films, the filmmakers are finally able to get their dues. Short films started drawing more attention over the past two years, in India. What used to be considered student films or films for festivals, were now available to everyone, via the internet. With applications available on portable devices like mobile phones, watching these short films on the go became easier. While films in the previous few years have used story based plots to convey important messages, short films in 2015 have started to aim at pure story- telling. Sometimes filmmakers wish to tell stories, with a script that short to fit in for a two hour long feature film. Thus, short films give those filmmakers the chance to tell the audience those stories. Short films manage to hold the audience’s attention more than feature films, as they don't drag the story too much. These films have the advantage of having a crisp and tight plot. Thus, short films are definitely something we all should look forward to, since the quality is just getting better and better.