Brown's Soni Razdan On Why OTT Platforms Are A Boon: Every Film Is Not Made For The Cinema Hall | EXCL

Soni

Razdan, who is mother to Alia Bhatt, started her career in the 1980s with Aparna Sen's 36 Chowringhee Lane. The actress has been part of several art films and commercial hits. However, in an interview with us, the Brown star shared that the era of parallel cinema in India was one of a kind. She also commented on the state of the film business today and said it's become very expensive. That's why she was grateful for streaming services, which allowed different kinds of projects to be made and let audiences see features they might have missed in theatres.

Brown's Soni Razdan on why parallel cinema existed in a lucky phase

Speaking to Zoom, the Songs of Paradise actress shared that making the film you want to make has always been difficult. Soni Razdan stated, "I think the parallel cinema movement when it began was a very lucky phase for those filmmakers who happened to be there at that time and had the stories ready and could cast them and make them. They were just lucky because before that and after that it really didn't exist. It's kind of melted and evaporated."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5fljLWtp5I

She continued, "I think the option to that is the streaming platforms because there you can be a lot more different. Today we're talking about Brown. Earlier you couldn't have made it at all because it's not a film. It's a very different genre so you would not have the chance to put it out there the way you would have wanted to do it. I think the fact that we have the OTT platforms today is a huge boon for us as filmmakers and as actors. We actually have another option." The Zee5 series co-starring Karisma Kapoor and Surya Sharma is based on the book City of Death. Set in Kolkata, it features Karisma as a police officer named Rita Brown who is solving a grisly murder of a young woman. Razdan plays Rita's mother Janice Brown in the series directed byAbhinay Deo.

Why is the economics of filming and distribution hard today?

The actress believed with the changing of the times, the old business model also did not make sense. She also added that audiences don't really realise how difficult it is to get a film made and released. Razdan explained, "Unfortunately, there is this caveat nowadays that you have to first release the film in theatre. I think that will actually go away, it's not sustainable. It does not actually make any sense. It only makes sense for people who are buying the films later on if they want to see if the film has got the weight. I think eventually it doesn't really work. Every film is not made for the cinema hall."

According to Soni Razdan, the economics have drastically changed and now it's much more expensive to see a film in a cinema hall. "So you will go and see that one tentpole film every three months. You're not going every weekend and spend thousands of rupees to see a normal film, which will eventually come at home and you don't really mind it being on a smaller screen. So these are all the gauges that the audience has in mind. Yes, it's difficult but it's always been difficult. It's never been easy. It should change," the veteran actress concluded. Earlier this year, she was also seen in the Amazon Prime Video series Bait, starring Riz Ahmed. Her next OTT project is Talaash starring Parineeti Chopra and Tahir Raj Bhasin for Netflix.