OTTplay Awards & Conclave 2022: Kirti Kulhari, Jaideep Ahlawat, Netflix Head India (Series) Tanya Bami discuss future of OTT at first pan-India OTT awards

The first-ever OTTplay Awards and Conclave, a high-profile event from the Hindustan Times, took place today at the JW Marriott, Juhu, Mumbai.

One Nation One OTT Award! The first-ever OTTplay Awards and Conclave, a high-profile event from the Hindustan Times, took place today at the JW Marriott, Juhu, Mumbai. OTTplay is India's first OTT recommendation and content-discovery platform.

The Netflix Series head, Tanya Bami, and ace actors such as Jaideep Ahlawat and Kirti Kulhari, joined the conclave to speak their views on the 'Future of OTTs.'

The conclave began with RJ Ruchi welcoming Avinash Mudaliar. The co-founder and CEO of OTTplay stepped on stage and welcomed everyone at the first Pan-India OTT award. He began his insightful speech by talking about how the OTT platforms have broken barriers in languages, and have diversified entertainment as well as the genres in films and shows vastly.

"I grew up watching Indian cinema, across languages and geographies. My father's love for Hindi cinema, my mother's craze for Tamil cinema, my own explorations of Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and Telugu cinema... And as I grew older, Bangalore opened me upto World Cinema. It was never entertainment, it was always an art. The art form that has even helped me with my Hindi. I am not kidding. Hindi Cinema taught me to speak better Hindi than anything ever could. And no I am not gonna give a test to prove it. Blame it on Mirzapur and Pataal Lok that have added these new colors to it," Avinash Mudaliar, the co-founder and CEO of OTTplay, said in his welcome speech.

He then went on to add that cinema, as a medium, has no boundaries and explained why he was wanted to 'celebrate' this oneness. "What began with the vision to recommend and stream content beyond boundaries, languages and platforms, eventually and naturally transcended to awarding the same. Cinema and web shows have no language, no barriers, no boundaries…They just are an exhilarating cocktail of art, emotion, passion and much more. So let’s celebrate them as just that."

"Sans border. Sans Language. Sans Geographies," further said the head honcho.

After that, the host, Monika Rawal Kukreja, the senior entertainment editor of HT City, introduced Kirti, Jaideep, and Tanya to the audience and began with her round of questions.

Jaideep spoke about breaking the Hindi hero notion, "I believe, being a student of literature, that a story needs to be the hero of the film. And the story is always the hero, people have started writing stories according to that." He continued in Hindi and said, "Jo liberty as an actor mujhe milti hai as an actor who writers ko ab pehle milti hai. And the pandemic has to play a huge part in this. But as Kriti said cinema has its own charm."

When questioned about his views on how recently Bollywood hasn't gotten any hits through its films, the Paatal Lok actor mentioned, "It's just a phase, because cinema has its own charm. However, OTT can be streamed according to your comfort. The exposure that has been given to the youth of watching the content not only from all over India but the world. "

OTT platforms seemed to have played a huge role in helping Kirti find her place in the film industry. "Someone like me, and maybe a lot of others, were sort of getting lost in the middle of the whole Bollywood. Not knowing where to stand, where to go, what to to do, what works for us. And I think OTT is like a breath of fresh air for people like us who have finally been given opportunities and acknowledged for what we bring to the table", she said.

Tanya believes that the OTT revolution still seems to be in its early stages. When asked about how the advent of digital platforms ushered in a new way of consuming content, she said "When you say half a decade, it sounds like a lot, because I feel like we just got started. Netflix arrived on the scene and it probably ushered in the golden age of content".

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