Kirti Kulhari: For distributors, it’s about the faces in the film, not how good it is
Actor Kirti Kulhari feels happy that now every film has a platform to reach out to audiences, through OTTs, and asserts that a platform has got ‘nothing’ to do with how good the film is.
The popularity of web content and OTT platforms today can be gauged by the fact that even films, originally made for a theatrical release, are now heading for a direct-to-OTT release due to Covid 19 crisis. While Shakuntala Devi, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, Lootcase have already released, there are many biggies lined-up next.
Ask Kirti Kulhari, who has acted in the web series Four More Shots Please!, her take on this, and she opines, “Releasing a film on the web or having a theatrical release honestly has got nothing to do with how good the film is.”
Having made her stance clear right at the outset, she adds that normally, when films release in theatres, it’s always looked at from a business perspective.
“While people can take it personally, even I would — if it happens with my film — ask ‘Why is my film not releasing in the theatres?’. I’m also very aware of the business aspect,” she continues explaining, “The distributors don’t look at how good the film is. For them, it’s as simple as who is the face of the film, what’s the market value for the face right now, and how much business it could do.”
What Kulhari also feels is that this approach — of running after collections — does backfire. “Distributors go wrong sometimes,” says the 34-year-old, who has starred in films such as Pink, Indu Sarkar, Mission Mangal and Uri: The Surgical Strike.
The actor goes on to say that most of the times, it’s really about who stars in the film theatrically, while on OTTs, this isn’t the case.
“I’m happy about the fact that while there was a time when everyone struggled with releasing good films, which had content and were termed as ‘art films’, completely getting excluded from everyone who could possibly watch and enjoy it — today, you have platforms which reach a much wider audience all across the globe, and not just India. I’d rather be doing this than just do a theatrical and not reach a lot of people,” ends Kulhari.
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