Hindi
A festival of South Asian documentaries will feature 4 Indian films
NEW DELHI: A festival of 12 non-fiction films from South Asia covering a wide range of subjects from piracy and copyright issues to India’s agrarian crises, labour migrants and natural disasters will be screened in a four-day ‘Travelling Films South Asia 2010” festival here this week.
The festival encapsulates a flavour of the subcontinent with films from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Organised by India International Centre here in collaboration with Himal Southasian (a magazine published from Nepal) of Kathmandu, the Festival will be held from 29 August to 1 September. All the films are subtitled in English.
The Festival will open with an introduction by FSA Director NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati. The opening film is Kerosene (Sri Lanka; 16 min; 2011; English & with subtitles) by Kannan Arunasalam on how taxi drivers and newspapermen had to deal with shortage of kerosene following embargoes during the war with Tamil Tigers.
The festival includes three award winners at Film South Asia Festival 2011, Kathmandu, as well as other films selected to showcase the variety, treatment and intensity that marks the world of South Asian documentaries.
The winners of the Film South Asia Festival 2011 include Nargis: When Time Stopped Breathing (Myanmar; 90 min; 2010; English subtitles) by Kyaw Kyaw Oo and Muang Myint Aung is about Cyclone Nargis which raged for hours in May 2008 in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Delta, killing 140,000 people. The filmmakers recorded scenes that touched them such as rain-drenched survivors searching for wood and nails in the mud to build a roof over their heads.
According to the directors, “Our images reflect our own feelings as much as those of the people we met; we have carefully woven these emotions into an intimate and poetic film.” The film won the Special Jury mention.
The Truth That Wasn’t There (Sri Lanka/UK; 84 min; 2011; English with subtitles) by Guy Gunaratne won the Second Best Film Award. It is about three student journalists who crossed the frontlines in the wake of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, becoming the only independent journalists to have done so. They witnessed the trail of destruction and documented everything they saw on 30 hours of tape and over 4000 photographs.
The Festival will also screen Journey to Yarsa (Nepal; 65 min; 2011; English subtitles) by Dipendra Bhandari which is winner of the Tareque Masud Best Debut Film Award. It is the story of a man in search of yarsagumba, a fungus that grows out of caterpillars in the high Himalaya, and is much prized for its medicinal properties
The Indian films include Nero’s Guests (56 min; 2009; English) by Deepa Bhatia which won the top award of the Indian Documentary Producers Association. It is a very dark picture of the government’s failure in the face suicides by nearly 200, 000 farmers over the last 10 years and the daunting task undertaken by one journalist, the rural-affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper P Sainath, to awaken the government to this.
Another Indian film is Dharavi, Slum for Sale (79 min; 2010; English) by Lutz Konermann about arguably the world’s largest slum, Dharavi, in Mumbai, where thousands are facing eviction.
Cowboys in India (India; 76 min; 2009; English) by Simon Chambers is about the evils perpetrated by the London-based mining company Vedanta Resources in rural India through a story.
Partners in Crime (India; 94 min; 2011; English) by Paromita Vohra is about video and music piracy and violation of copyright. When more than three fourths of those with an Internet connection download all sorts of material for free, are they living out a brand new cultural freedom, but are they criminals?
The Pakistani film is The Search for Justice (28 min; 2011) by Tehmina Ahmed and investigates the state of labour laws and courts in Pakistan, exposing flaws in the system and recommending possible solutions.
Tres Triste Tigres (Three Sad Tigers) from Bangladesh (15 min; 2010) by David Munoz is the story of middlemen exploiting those who seek to travel abroad to escape poverty.
The Afghan film I Was Worth 50 Sheep (72 min; 2010) by Nima Sarvestani is the story of a girl who had been sold to a man 40 years her senior but escaped.
The Nepalese film is Saving Dolma (62 min; 2010) by Kesang Tseten which, through the story of a Nepali maid Dolma convicted for murder, provides a rare glimpse into the fractured lives of ill-prepared women migrant workers in the Gulf States.
Hindi
GUEST COLUMN: Why film libraries & IPs are the new engines of growth
Unlocking value through catalogue strength and IP synergy
MUMBAI:In a media landscape defined by fragmentation, platform proliferation, and ever-evolving audience behavior, the economics of filmmaking are undergoing a fundamental shift. No longer confined to box office performance, a film’s true value is now measured across an extended lifecycle that spans digital platforms, syndication networks, and global markets. As content consumption becomes increasingly non-linear and algorithm-driven, film libraries and intellectual properties (IPs) are emerging as strategic assets, capable of delivering sustained, long-term returns. For Mohan Gopinath, head – bollywood business at Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd., this transformation signals a decisive move from hit-driven models to portfolio-led value creation. In this piece, Gopinath explores how legacy content, when intelligently repurposed and distributed, can unlock recurring revenue streams, why the interplay between catalogue and original IP is critical, and how media companies can build resilient, future-ready entertainment businesses.
For all these years, we thought that a film is successful if it performs well in theatres. There are opening weekend numbers, box office milestones, and distribution footprints that gave a good picture of how the movie has done commercially and also tell us about its cultural impact. However, there are multiple platforms today, always-on content ecosystem, which has caused a shift. Today, the theatrical performance is not the culmination of a film’s journey but merely the beginning of a much longer and more dynamic lifecycle.
Film libraries today are emerging as high-value, constantly evolving assets that deliver sustained returns well beyond initial release cycles. This becomes a point of great advantage for legacy content owners with diverse catalogues, to shape long-term business outcomes.
According to FICCI-EY, the media and entertainment industry of India achieved a valuation of Rs 2.78 trillion in 2025 which is expected to reach Rs 3.3 trillion by 2028 through a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7 per cent and digital media will bring in more than Rs 1 trillion to become the biggest sector which generates about 36 per cent of overall market revenues.
This shift is the expansion of distribution endpoints. We know how satellite television was once the primary secondary window but today, it coexists with YouTube, OTT platforms, Connected TV, and FAST channels. Each of these platforms caters to distinct audience demographics and consumption behaviors, helping content owners to obtain more value from the same asset across multiple formats.
For instance, films that had great reruns, now find continuous engagement across digital platforms. On YouTube, classic Hindi cinema continues to attract significant viewership, reaching audiences across generations and geographies with remarkable consistency. At Shemaroo Entertainment, this is reflected in our film library shaped over decades as part of a long association with Indian entertainment. From classics such as Amar Akbar Anthony to much-loved entertainers like Jab We Met, Welcome, Dhamaal, Phir Hera Pheri, Dhol, Golmaal, and Bhagam Bhag, many of these titles continue finding new audiences while retaining their place in popular memory. Their enduring appeal reflects how culturally resonant stories can continue creating value over time. Similarly, FAST channels have created curated, always-on environments where catalogue content can continue to thrive through star-led and genre-based programming.
This multi-platform approach has very well transformed films into long-tail IP assets which are capable of generating recurring revenue across advertising, subscription, and syndication models.
The evolution of audience behavior is equally important. Nowadays, it’s more important to find what’s more relative than what’s recent as viewers are more influenced by mood, memories, and algorithmic suggestions than by release schedules. Even if a movie was released decades ago, it can trend alongside a newly released movie, if surfaced in the right context. Thoughtful packaging, whether through festival-based playlists, actor-driven collections, or genre clusters, allows catalogue content to remain dynamic and continuously discoverable. Shemaroo Entertainment has built extensive film libraries over decades and its focus has mostly been on recontextualizing content for the consumption of newer environments. This process doesn’t just include digitization and restoration, but also re-packaging of films as per platforms.
Syndication itself has evolved into a key growth driver. In perspective, when looking at the domestic market, curated content packages continue to find strong demand across broadcast and digital platforms. Meanwhile, in the international market, especially in markets like Middle East, North America and Southeast Asia, the appetite for Indian content is opening up new monetization avenues. Here, the ability to package and position catalogue content effectively becomes as important as the content itself.
Importantly, the need to re-package catalogue content does not diminish the role of new content. In fact, originals and fresh IP are essential to sustaining the long-term value of a film library because they act as discovery engines that bring audiences into the ecosystem, while catalogue content drives depth, retention, and repeat engagement.
This interplay between the “new” and the “known” is what defines a robust content strategy today. While new films generate spikes in consumption, catalogue titles offer familiarity and comfort. These are factors that are increasingly valuable in an era of content abundance and decision fatigue. This is also shaping our strategy, drawing value from both a deep catalogue assets and a growing focus on original IPs to strengthen long-term audience engagement and build more predictable revenue streams.
There is growing recognition that long-term value in entertainment will be shaped not only by how intelligently existing content continues to live, travel and find relevance, but also by how consistently new stories are created to renew that ecosystem. In that sense, film libraries and original IP are not parallel bets, but reinforcing engines of growth. For media companies, the opportunity lies in making these two forces work together, because that is increasingly where more resilient and predictable businesses are being shaped.
Note: The views expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect our own.
