The weekend began on a vibrant note at the ongoing 11th edition of Biffes. Thousands thronged the venue on Saturday with children and senior citizens in tow. Regulars regrouped this year as they bonded over their love for films.
Organisers said that even conservative estimates put the footfall at over 5,000 though the capacity of the venue is only 3,000. Most films ran to packed houses. People began queuing up for popular films an hour before the show. Many had to return home disappointed.
“I try to see five films a day. But I couldn’t do it on Saturday. By the time I came out of a show, there were long queues for the other films. I couldn’t get a seat for two films,” said Ramesh Sundaram, a cinephile.
There was a minor disturbance during the wait for Japanese film Shoplifters, as fans attempted to break the queue. Other popular international films included the Turkish drama The Wild Pear Tree and the German film The Bra.
Visitors, disappointed that they couldn’t get a seat for the screening of Kannada blockbuster KGF Chapter 1, got into an argument with volunteers for refusing to let them in even though they were willing to sit on the floor. This was despite the film being already available on streaming platforms. A conversation with the KGF film unit scheduled for Sunday is also expected to see large crowds. The other popular Kannada film screened on Saturday – Ayogya – also ran to a packed house.
Staff canteen a big hit
One of the biggest complaints from visitors at Biffes was the expensive food served at the venue. However, a few found a ‘secret canteen’ within the mall – the staff canteen for employees. “The cost of a meal here is less than the cost of a cup of coffee at the food court,” said one Biffes visitor.
‘The next transformation: Multiplexes to mobiles’
The next transition is from multiplex theatres to Over the Table Top (OTT) screening platforms on handheld devices and it’s already happening, said Suriya Narayanan R., South India Content Head and executive producer of OTT platform ZEE5. He was speaking at the panel discussion, ‘OTT Platforms perceiving the regional market – challenges and opportunities’ at BIFFes on Saturday.
At presently there are 22.5 crore monthly unique viewers on a total of 37 OTT platforms in the country with an estimated revenue of ₹3,000 crore. This is expected to go up to 55 crore users with a revenue of ₹13,800 crore by 2023, said Kannada film-maker Gangadhar Salimath, who was moderating the session.
Mr. Narayanan held that the growth would surpass the estimates. “We aimed to get 50 million users on ZEE5 by the first year, but we achieved this within eight months,” he said. One of the surprising trends observed on OTT platforms was that people who spent the most time on these platforms were from small towns. Though television content remains a big hit, he said that it was likely to become passé in six to seven years as OTT platforms emerge as the preferred platform for original fiction content.
