Can Short Movies grow in India?

Let me start off by defining or making the reader understand what I think is a short movie. Any movie or video which has a message in it via make-believe characters which is far less time consuming to the audience than a regular Bollywood or Hollywood film is a Short Movie. The run-time for a short movie can range anywhere between 5 to 30 minutes where a Bollywood movie runs from anywhere between 2 hours to 3.5 hours.

Bollywood movies generated $1.7 billion from 3 billion tickets in the year 2013. The number of tickets sold is twice as much as Hollywood but the revenue generated in Hollywood is $10.8 billion. This might seem like a shock to most of us but the Bollywood’s revenue has improved drastically year on year from 2007 and will keep improving. The reason for this is that, let’s face it, movies are made for money. The cash flow in movies is too big to ignore and people with the talent in the industry are cashing in on it. On the other hand, short movies are not made for money. They are made in order to act as a stepping stone to the major leagues. This is the problem short movies face. The cash generated in Bollywood cannot be compared to the cash generated in short movies. There is too big a difference. Another important thing that I would like to bring up here is that people buy tickets to watch Bollywood movies. Unfortunately there is hardly a theater which sells tickets to run a short movie. A typical Indian movie-goer would expect nothing less than a 2.5 hour movie for the Rs. 100 or so he pays.

This brings us to a question. Why can’t theaters run short movies for lesser prices? The main reason for this is Indians are money minded above everything else and they would earn 100 times the money if they run a Bollywood movie instead. This might seem sad but it is the truth. I personally would not start or run a theater to help improve short movies when I know for a fact that Bollywood movies offer so much more money.

Right now, short movies are seen as either a hobby or a path to Bollywood. I think if we need to improve the standards of short movies then we will have to do it for the right reasons. A right approach and a stable government is also required if we decide to seek the state’s help. I’m sure political parties will be open to this idea at first to attract supporters/voters in the field of arts but I see this idea fizzling out if there is no conviction and determination among the people who want short movies to grow.

Having said that, in the present government and the economy, I do not see short movies growing much as an entity of its own. It will always be overshadowed by Bollywood in India and Hollywood in the US. This is the way it always was and will remain unless and until the mind-set of the masses change (which, mind you, does not change overnight).