It has been a pathetic situation for small and content-based filmmakers since out of 40-odd releases till June this year, only a few made money, while "Balagam" among them shook the box office with thundering Rs 25 crore collections. “The success ratio is negligible and it has to improve to give more space for young and talented makers,” says national award winning producer Raj Kandukuri who is awaiting the release of his son Shiva Kandukuri next movie ‘Manu Charitra’ this Friday. “Producer of this film has spent well to create the buzz and we are hopeful since it has solid content,” he adds. He says that he always banked on young talent and tasted success with films like ‘Pellichoopulu’ and ‘Mental Madhilo’. “Only young makers come up with out of the box ideas and break the monotony of Telugu cinema,” he adds.
Whereas, producer C Kalyan blames it on the taste of Telugu audience who mostly prefer star-centric while films with new faces which rely on content are finding it hard to draw in the audience on the first day. “Fans turn up in big numbers for star movies, whereas small films have no such luxury. Hence, a small filmmaker who makes a film for Rs 1 crore has to spend another Rs 1 crore to make some noise about his film. Later, content based movies gain mileage only through word-of-mouth publicity and gradually pick up before it happens, it is taken out of theatres, sometimes,” he adds.
Adding to small filmmakers’ woes these days, even top OTT platforms like ZEE, aHa, Sony and others insist on small filmmakers to release the films in theatres first before screening them on OTT platforms. “That is quite a worrisome situation because small producers have to spend at least Rs 5 lakhs for one theatre and even screening in 10 theatres will not help them much,” laments Kalyan.
Whereas, Malayalam cinema thrives on good and novel content and churns out thought-provoking movies like ‘2018’, ‘Romancham’ and ‘Iratta’ to name a few. “Malayalam filmmakers get a lot of support from OTTs, we hope similar kind of patronage for content based Telugu films, to give boost to novel ideas,” concludes Kandukuri.
