Exclusive! Halitha Shameem: I take feedback from the audience seriously and analyze them

The filmmaker talks about pleasing the audience and rise in number of filmmakers and women-centric stories across the world,

Halitha Shameem

After a brief hiatus, director Halitha Shameem has been hitting the headlines again with Loners, the segment which she directed for the anthology Putham Pudhu Kaalai Vidiyaadhaa, starring Arjun Das and Lijomol Jose, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. In an exclusive chat with us, she spoke about the plethora of opportunities offered by OTT platforms, the influx of women-oriented films and how she tries to match the expectations of the audience.

She says, "The prime advantage of the OTT boom is that there is no more monopoly. There are plenty of regional content and competition has increased in a healthy way. This has lead to a never-before-seen demand for original content and unique characters which are so rooted."

On being a woman filmmaker and the slight rise in the number of filmmakers from the feminine gender, she says it's heartening to see a number of female-oriented stories that are told in different languages across the world.

"It's a healthy, encouraging trend. There should be adequate representation from all genders and communities in order to enjoy stories told from different points of view. It's good to see that women-centric stories are now quite saleable," she says.

So, how does she manage to catch the pulse of the audience? According to Halitha, what keeps her updated is the feedback she receives from viewers whenever her movie releases. She says, "I'm quite a critical person. So, I can't be pleased easily when it comes to the quality of a scene or a movie. Watching movies with the viewers is one way of getting to understand them better."

She adds, "Nevertheless, it is difficult to please everyone. I know people who didn't like Sillu Karupatti, and there are those who say that Poovarasam Peepee is my best work. But I take feedback seriously and analyze them. The pandemic has brought in many changes to our life, the way we watch movies, the way we used to interact with people, the dating pattern...everything has changed. People don't go to random movies any more. They are patient enough to wait for films to release on OTT platforms. So, pleasing audience may not be easy in the coming days."

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