Going Long on Shorts

The rise in digital platforms and their ever-growing audience are enabling filmmakers to experiment with the short film format and take it beyond film festivals

- PRANIT SARDA

The first time Guneet Monga, founder of Sikhya Entertainment, a production house based out of Mumbai, got into the short documentary space was in 2016 when American film producer Stacey Sher reached out to her for a short film her daughter was making in India. After listening to the idea—a film about the taboo around menstruation and how social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham was making cheap sanitary pads—Monga decided to come on as executive producer of the film.

The team hired a young director, Rayka Zehtabchi, who was fresh out of the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, to make the film. Their aim, when they started shooting at Hapur village in Uttar Pradesh, was to raise funds for a pad-making machine to donate to Muruganantham. Little did they know that the short film, Period. End of Sentence., would go on to bag the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).

Not just documentary and nonfiction, shorts, including in genres like thrillers, comedy, drama, horror and romance, are seeing a revival in recent years. While traditionally, they were considered only for film festivals, today they are finding an audience through YouTube, IGTV and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. They are attracting not just young and amateur filmmakers but also the biggest names in cinema; the only requirement being a powerful script.

“Shorts are a quicker way to connect with the audience. Even a 5-minute film with a powerful story is going to connect with the audience,” says short filmmaker Satyarth Singh, who established his production house, Lights on Films, in 2012. He has made six to seven shorts, starting with a documentary in 2013 and moving on to fiction in 2014.