‘OTT platforms have democratized content’

OTT platforms have democratized the content and reduced male dominance in the entertainment industry making it more inclusive, said Monisha Advani, co-partner of Emmay Entertainment. 

Speaking at the “Diversity & Inclusivity: Changing the narrative” discussion at the e4m Streaming Summit 2022 on Wednesday, Advani said that more and more women are now becoming producers and cinematographers. 

Advani and her co-partner Madhu Bhojwani were speaking at a panel discussion anchored by film critic Mayank Shekhar. 

“There is no predictability in content business; you are constantly on the input side, which is the only controllable component; output is a variable,’ said Advani.

Former businesswomen Monisha Advani, and Madhu Bhojwani quit their career and joined hands with their schoolmate filmmaker Nikkhil Advani in 2011 to try their hands in filmmaking.

Within a decade Emmay Entertainment became a successful film and web series production house with many runaway successes. It has one of the largest accounts of original fictional content across formats in India.

Two-thirds of Emmay’s leadership is female. They have so far produced 24 films and web series like Mumbai Diaries, Batla House and Rocket Boys for OTT platforms like Sonyliv Zee5 and Disney+Hotstar. 

The company has recently signed four strong women directors Kaashvie Nair (whose upcoming film starring Neena Gupta, Arjun Kapoor & Rakul Preet), Madhumita (critically acclaimed director of the award-winning Tamil feature film KD), Mitakshara Kumar (directing a period epic for an international OTT) and Ananya Banerjee (debuting with two web series this year).

“When we entered the film industry, most production houses were the legacy ones. Besides, the industry itself has been heavily male-dominated and scattered like cottage industry,” said Advani, who along with Bhojwani first tried to streamline the production work by creating infrastructure, setting up processes and thus curbing uncertainty and making annual reports of the production house.  

She said, “Due to the scattered structure, the Hindi film industry didn’t grow as much as the regional film industry. Moreover, most regional films are family-oriented while Bollywood movies are branded as Friday film, Saturday film, Monday to Friday films. Things are changing now as some independent production houses are trying to streamline processes. The Hindi entertainment industry has also grown phenomenally over the past five years. It is ₹10,000 crore market now, of which nearly 50% came in the last five years only.”

The duo also said that they are trying to support new talent. 

Predicting a bright future for the OTT market in India, Bhojwani also highlighted how OTT platforms helped a lot of filmmakers get going during the pandemic. “Many feature films were released online during the past 24 months.”