Further evidence of Netflix and Amazon Prime’s global advancement, Lata Jha, writing in LiveMint from New Delhi, India, reports that directors of smaller films are increasingly looking towards streaming platforms and away from the box office for exposure:

“For starters, these small films have always been squeezed for space. The Hindi film industry makes around 2,000 films a year, but there’s space only for 200 to 300 to release in the 9,530 theatres in the country… Smaller films grow only by word of mouth. But, given their limited shelf life, everything depends on the business managed within the first three days, before another film is ready to take over next Friday… That is where the digital platforms come in. Cheaper data and a country increasingly abandoning the idea of appointment viewing make these services a viable option for smaller films.”

This is significant because India leads the film world on many fronts. And yet, Indian independent filmmakers face the same issues as their sisters and brothers elsewhere.

My take: Isn’t it interesting that Bollywood has the same effect as Hollywood on independent filmmakers in each culture. Here in Canada, this makes me truly respect Quebec’s results; see the chart on page 118 of Profile 2016. It shows that whereas English Canadian films average about 1% of the box office, French films are hitting it out of the park at about 10%, with larger revenue as well. Could it be the key is the lack of a dominant commercial industry that allows a local independent industry to fill the void?