Curious Case: By Radhika Bhirani

Radhika Bhirani for Zenger News ~~ rbhirani@gmail.com ~~ Gaurav Raturi, an Indian film buff, went around the film festival circuit in the country for a few years till 2019 trying to find out if there were any takers for pay-per-view streaming platforms for independent cinema. Most people who heard his idea, said: “Who will pay to watch our films online?” Despite the naysayers, Raturi knew there was a market he could explore. And, in August 2020, he launched Cinemapreneur, a pay-per-view streaming platform for independent films. To begin with, he had only 25 films — most of which did not get screened in big cinemas or make it to bigger platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime. But, despite the niche market, his platform took off. The pandemic, which had shut down cinemas and stopped projects from going on the floor, had also created a market for watching films online. Cinemapreneur seized this opportunity. “Everybody questioned my decision to enter the TVoD (transactional video on dema

Radhika Bhirani for Zenger News ~~ rbhirani@gmail.com ~~ Manya Singh ran away from home at 14. She took a train from Gorakhpur in the eastern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai in Maharashtra — around 1,000 miles away — without a ticket, all by herself. She wanted to, as the India-set Hollywood film “The White Tiger” says, “break out of the coop.” The 20-year-old daughter of an auto-rickshaw (three-wheeled vehicle) driver from Uttar Pradesh is today, a runner-up at the VLCC Femina Miss India 2020 beauty pageant. “Growing up, everything was hard for our family,” Singh told Zenger News. “In our homes, people say families are ably supported only if the first-born is a boy, but I never wanted my family to feel that. So, I was responsible and mature from a very young age.” “When I reached and informed them, they were already on a train to Mumbai. A week later, I took up a part-time job at a Pizza Hut outlet,” said Singh, who also worked at a call center at night to earn some money, whi

Radhika Bhirani for Zenger News rbhirani@gmail.com A tragic incident in her home country led, years later, to filmmaker Karishma Dev Dube’s poignant movie about two schoolgirls. Now the film is among 10 of 174 entries to advance on the shortlist for Best Live Action Short Film for the  93rd Academy Awards . The final five will be announced on March 15. The winners will be announced on April 25. In 2013, at least 23 primary students died and several others fell ill in the eastern state of Bihar after they ate a midday meal contaminated with pesticide. The tragedy received widespread coverage in national and international media. It was around the same time that a young New Delhi woman — Dube — was preparing to move to the United States to pursue film studies. At some point, she recalled images from that horrific incident. The result is “Bittu,” a simple, soulful film set in the valleys of the Himalayas. Inspired by a true story, the 17-minute film tells of the friendship betw