Save The Tigers creator Mahi V Raghav on his love for OTT-form storytelling, plans for his banner Three Autumn Leaves | Exclusive

Writer-director Mahi V Raghav forayed into cinema as a producer and didn’t taste success with two of his productions. In a bid to take his directorial ambitions forward, he made a small-budget film Paathshaala under a shoestring budget. While Mahi helmed the commercially successful Anando Brahma and co-produced, directed Yatra later, he plans to go big with production of OTT content through his banner Three Autumn Leaves in the coming years.

His first step in that direction, the satire Save The Tigers, is coming to Disney+ Hotstar tomorrow. Ahead of its launch, he discussed his love for long-form content and his plans for his production house in a chat with OTTplay.com

Reason behind starting Three Autumn Leaves and why OTT is the way to go!

I love the long-form storytelling format - Game of Thrones and Narcos. The company was set up much before Yatra, but its primary aim is to produce content for the OTT market. It’s not going to be easy for traditional production houses to transform overnight and work with streamers. Fortunately for someone like me who’s worked in various capacities, it was easy to adapt to the change in tide and approach it in an organised manner.

Sensing an early advantage in the OTT market

Considering how most of our film production companies work, it’ll take a lot of time for them to understand how a project gets greenlit and know the potential of the medium. Why would a huge production house go back and forth to the offices of the OTT platforms for projects when they’re comfortable in the theatrical business? This presents a new opportunity for us. I am a storyteller to us and what I need is an audience regardless of the medium.

Why can’t we go global?

When you watch shows like Money Heist or Narcos, you realise you can make content that the entire world can watch. This wasn’t possible when OTT wasn’t around. I would’ve had to relocate to the US if I were to make a Hollywood film and there were a lot of barriers before. OTT has opened up everything and eliminated such constraints.

The need to expand Telugu market and the road ahead

The reach of a Telugu project is limited to 7-10 crore viewers today but what’s stopping you from making a Fauda or a Narcos that’ll have a global audience? For me, it was important to go through one or two cycles in this medium and understand how long format works. We’ve never had great content on television nor have we adapted great literature for the small screen.

Five years from now, it’s important for us to be ready to make a Fauda. Creatively, I want our stories to go beyond borders and the market size of OTT is unbelievable; there’s scope for huge money. It’d be stupidity for our generation of storytellers to not make use of this revolution.

(Created by Mahi V Raghav and Pradeep Advaitham, Save The Tigers, directed by Teja Kakumanu, starring Priyadarshi, Chaitanya Krishna and Abhinav Gomatam will be out on Disney+ Hotstar on April 27)