MAM
Asia’s largest content creation festival, India Film Project is back with its 9th Season!
Witnessing enormous growth in building a community of content creators across the varying forms of art since its inception in 2011, Asia’s largest content creation festival, India Film Project marks it’s come back this year with season 9. With an aim to encourage the budding talents and their enthusiasm for 8 years, this season will be a notch higher as the winning titles of 50 hour filmmaking challenge will be premiered across PVR Cinemas in the country and will also be televised on world’s premier youth brand, MTV.
With an increasing community of 6.5 million filmmakers and content creators coming together on 12th and 13th of October 2019 at Mehboob Studios, Bandra, Mumbai. This year more than 35000+ filmmakers are expected to participate from across 300+ cities, and 22+ countries making 1500+ short films over a weekend. Bollywood bigwigs Abhishek Chaubey, Pradeep Sarkar, Apurva Asrani, Bhavani Iyer, amongst the other have been brought on board to judge the series of challenges.
The two-day content creation festival at Mumbai will not only have speakers from different fields of art ranging from films, comics, literature, music but also hosts a series of interesting panel discussions, AMAs, workshops and screenings. Apart from eminent juries, speakers and talent, India Film Project has also joined hands with two giants of the entertainment industry, PVR Cinemas and MTV who are on board as sponsors this season.
Challenging the enthusiasts from diverse spaces, India Film Project brings an exciting line up of contests this year too. With its flagship property 50-hour filmmaking where the participants are challenged to create content from scratch which includes scripting, shooting and post production in a span of 50 hours. This mega challenge is slated to happen from 27th September, 8 pm to 29th September, 10 pm.
Apart from this, IFP also has other exciting contests ranging from Short Scriptwriting Challenge where contestants are supposed to submit an original script, to a Storytelling Challenge where one is expected to submit an original spoken word poetry, to Poster-Designing Challenge where the budding talents will have to recreate a Film Poster based on the given theme. The entries for these challenges are open till 15th September 2019. Each challenge promises to be distinctive in their own space not only appealing the participants but also the audiences.
Ritam Bhatnagar, Festival Director, India Film Project, and comments on the announcement of Season 9 “We, at IFP, aim at discovering the creators, valuing and showcasing their creation for the world to see. With this season, we aim to reach out to maximum content creators and make them the part of IFP community. From the beginning, we seek to solely provide a platform where creators can learn, create, network and share content. In this season, we plan to get bigger and better and provide an opportunity for the creators to portray the story to the audiences which they wish to.”
In association with PVR Cinemas and MTV, the winning titles will be theatrically released in cinemas across Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, and Chandigarh. Furthermore, these movies will also be premiered on MTV over weekends on a prime time slot for 6 months.
“With this collaboration, we aim to provide a multimedia platform for the emerging content creators. We are looking forward to associating with PVR and MTV for the one of its kind experience for the winners”, signs off Ritam Bhatnagar.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
