ShortsTV have announced the winners of its Best of India Short Film Festival 2019, Los Angeles. This is a platform for budding Indian filmmakers to make a mark on the world stage of mainstream cinema and get a direct entry and be considered for the dream award of every filmmaker, the Academy Awards which are popularly known as the Oscars.
ShortsTV which is a Short Film service available only on DTH platform Tata Sky in India which is dedicated to short movies and is also available in approximately 70 million households across the US, Latin America and Europe.
The winners of the festival are
Half Full, featuring veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah and Vikrant Massey, and Counterfeit Kunkoo, written and directed by Reema Sengupta.
Medianews4u caught up with Carter Pilcher, Chief Executive, ShortsTV to get his views on ShortsTV, their distribution strategy and a lot more.
Read on.
How has ShortsTV been doing in India?
One of the most exciting things about launching ShortsTV in India last November, has been watching a month on month growth of our subscribers.
Tata Sky tells us that we have been one of the fast growing services they have! India is a country that has embraced short films and the interest in the genre is growing rapidly so we’re thrilled to be giving viewers here the opportunity to see the best short films from India and around the world in one dedicated service.
Tell us about the initiative that ShortsTV is now organizing for budding Indian Film makers?
The Best of India Short Film Festival is our way of helping Indian filmmakers qualify for Oscar consideration and reach a bigger international audience.
Currently there are no film festivals in India that are accredited by the Academy of Motion Pictures, which means Indian filmmakers either have to win an award at an international Academy accredited film festival or screen their film at a cinema in Los Angeles or New York if they want to be considered for an Oscar nomination.
If a filmmaker gets shortlisted as a finalist in our Best of India Short Film Festival we organise a cinema run of their short in Los Angeles and also give them an opportunity to broadcast their film on ShortsTV around the world.
How many short films were shortlisted for the competition? Tell us more the role of ShortsTV in promoting the raw talent of film makers from various parts of the country.
We received over 3,000 entries this year and shortlisted four finalists out of which there were two winners (Half Full and Counterfeit Kunkoo). We are very excited about short films and filmmaking in India because India is a diverse country with lots of different and interesting stories to tell.
We license and broadcast a lot of exciting Hindi short films on ShortsTV but are not limited to that. We also have regional films from Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal and other states of India.
Regional film is growing constantly in the short film genre because there are plenty of up and coming filmmakers in different parts of the country who are developing their filmmaking skills in short film.
What are your plans on the expansion of distribution of ShortsTV? Do you intend to remain on Tata Sky or also be available to other consumers through other DTH platforms or maybe explore OTT platforms too?
We are very excited to be partnered with Tata Sky and have been exclusively broadcasted on DTH by them for the past year. We will continue with this but in the coming months will also have some exciting announcements about expanding our distribution on other platforms.
Which are the major growth areas for ShortsTV for this year?
We are going to see a big expansion in distribution of our TV service on DTH platforms later this year but are also focusing on mobile platforms.
Mobile use in India is huge and it’s the perfect platform for the consumption of short films, which can be viewed anywhere and anytime!
