Of liberation and freedom...
Digital platforms provide opportunities to experiment with content, feels Anurag Kashyap
W ith the flexible story format and a wide variety of experimental subject lines for a receptive global audience, digital platforms offer a huge creative liberty for a storytellers, says acclaimed filmmaker Anurag Kashyap.
Kashyap directed a short for the recently released anthology Lust Stories and he is coming up with a web series Sacred Games soon. “The digital platform has given me the freedom of storytelling, in terms of format and content. In Lust Stories, I am telling a story in half an hour, and in my upcoming Secret Games, the story is longer than two hours. So as a storyteller, one does not have to keep the length in mind, but how engaging the story is,” Kashyap said.
Kashyap said with Lust Stories, he got a chance to tell his story without any compromise, and the platform made a difference to it. “I think it was so liberating for me as a filmmaker to address such an issue. Raising questions on some matters without thinking about if the idea is salable at the box office, was very liberating for me as a filmmaker. I know, selling such an idea to a studio to release the film in the theatre could have been tougher. It also becomes the responsibility of the filmmaker to recover the money. And box office always controls certain things about the content,” said the filmmaker, whose story has Radhika Apte in the lead.
Is theatrical release of a film in under threat due to popularity of digital platforms? “No, I think cinema will change according to its content... It is happening already. I think more intimate content will be released online where people would enjoy the story in personal viewing, and event movies will be releasing more on theatre... Films like Avengers, Deadpool where the audience has to go to the theatre to experience the film,” he said.