Indian film critic and writer Baradwaj Rangan speaks with director Gurvinder Singh, producer Kimsi Singh, Suri Gopalan of Vista India Digital Media and Gaurav Raturi of Cinemapreneur about the rise of OTT platforms and what it means for independent filmmaking.
Baradwaj Rangan is an editor at the Film Companion (South). His writings on cinema, music, art, books, travel and humour have been published in various newspapers and magazines, including, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, The Caravan, Arts Illustrated, Open, Tehelka, Biblio, Outlook and The Cricket Monthly. He teaches a course on cinema at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai and has served as jury member at the National Film Awards, and as a member of the selection committee for international films at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.
Gaurav Raturi is the co-founder of Cinemapreneur, a pay-per-view OTT platform for curating Indian independent cinema. He also co-founded Filmbooth, one of the first platforms created to promote short films in India. As curator, he has programmed and built more than ten film festivals and screened hundreds of films at various alternate spaces in India. Through the years Gaurav has been building avenues and forums for promoting independent films. He is a TedX speaker and has given many sessions on storytelling in the age of digital era.
Kimsi Singh is an independent producer based in India. She produced her first feature film, Soni, in 2017 which premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival. She and director Ivan Ayr collaborated on three short films before making Soni. She works under her own production banner, Jabberwockee Talkies. Milestone is her second feature film as producer.
Gurvinder Singh is an award-winning filmmaker best known for his Punjabi language films Anhe Ghore Da Daan (Alms for a Blind Horse), which premiered at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, and Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction), which premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. His most recent film is Khanaur (Bitter Chestnut), which was shot with a largely non-professional cast in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh.
Suri Gopalan is the founder of Vista India Digital Media, which is one of the largest aggregators and localization companies for Indian content. Vista India has processed and delivered over 5000 films to the major OTT platforms including Amazon, Netflix, Apple & Google. He has over 30 years of Media Distribution experience both in Indian music & the film Industry.