FICCI Frames 2019: Stree director Amar Kaushik talks about small budget Bollywood films breaking through

The day 2 at the 20th edition of FICCI Frame 2019 was all about celebrating the small films and the success they achieved last year. The panel included Ms. Priti Shahani, Producer at Junglee Pictures, Badhaai Ho director Amit Sharma, writer-producer duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K, Vivek Krishnani, MD of Sony Pictures India, Ajit Andhare, COO, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Amar Kaushik, the director of Stree. It was moderated by Vijay Singh, CEO, Fox Star Studios.

The panel discussed the response and the journey of making successful films that weren’t made on big budgets. The year 2018 saw many such projects. One of which was Stree which went on to become one of the most profitable films of recent times. The director of the film, Amar Kaushik, belongs to the advertising background. While addressing the audience during the panel discussion, he said, “All the films that I worked on earlier were smaller content-driven films. I worked with Onir, Rajkumar Gupta and Raj, D.K. Earlier such films were referred to as art films, now we have started calling them concept driven. These kinds of films were always there in the industry. When I was making Stree, it was clear that we have to make something that has never been shown before. Hence it looked like a fresh film.”

The session saw different opinions on the same subject but in a positive way. Also, the one main aspect that everyone was happy about was the fact that films are now getting their due. They are being recognized for their content is a big change and a good one. Concept driven films are finally seeing good days and the panel agreed on it as well. The FICCI Frames is a three-day event. It will include panels from various aspects of the Media and Entertainment industry discussing the current and future scenario of the fraternity.