Black Lady enters OTT space

Team L&M

Beginning this year, one of the most looked forward-to recognition of excellence in cinema, Filmfare Awards, will be felicitating talent in 32 categories in the OTT segment. The award ceremony for the maiden edition of Flyx Filmfare OTT Awards will be held December 19, 2020 at Hotel Taj Lands End, Mumbai, between 3 pm and 10 pm. The awards were first introduced by the Filmfare magazine of The Times Group in 1954, the same year as the National Film Awards.

Announcing the maiden edition of the awards at a virtual press conference with Jitesh Pillaai, Editor, Filmfare; Shashank Singh, CEO & co-founder, Flyx and actor Kartik Aaryan in attendance, Worldwide Media CEO Deepak Lamba said, “We had contemplated on organising the awards last year too but then we shelved it due to tight schedules. We, at Filmfare, have always recognised talent and hard work in cinema, be it Hindi or regional. In 2017, we introduced a separate category for Short Films as we thought the talent in the segment needed to be recognised. And so it is now for the OTT segment.” Keeping social distancing norms in mind, the event has been be divided into phases with every segment having a certain number of invitees.

While Filmfare editor Jitesh Pillaai felt the king of storytelling is content once again after decades due to the OTT platform, Flyx CEO Shashank Singh was of the opinion that the pandemic pushed it ahead by at least four to five years in the last four to five months. Both agreed that there is an amazing amount of talent out there, loads still waiting to be explored.

Citing his latest release Love Aaj Kal as an example of how OTT reaches out to more number of people globally, Kartik said, “The movie didn’t do too well in cinema halls but it was among the most watched movies on OTT platform in 2020. Goes without saying that it is the future.” The Pyar Ka Panchnama actor went on to add that OTT has become a major source of motivation and excites loads of creative people in their respective fields. Claiming to have watched a number of web series during the Covid-19 period, Kartik said he was open to doing one in the near future. “The range you get to perform as an actor is much more on an OTT platform vis-à-vis a movie,” felt Kartik who will be next seen in Dhamaka in 2021.

The press conference was hosted by Filmfare’s digital editor Rahul Gangwani.