Anurag Kashyap compares streaming platforms to colonisers: 'These will shut down theatres, because theatres are enemies'

Anurag Kashyap, a well-known Bollywood filmmaker whose film Kennedy had its world debut at the current Cannes Film Festival, compared streaming services to the East India Company.

The director remarked, "All the streamers are like that," in an interview with Forbes India. "They come in, they are your best friends, then they are the colonisers and then they start ruling you." A lockdown, he continued, had put indie film in a "very bad and confused place" at the moment.

Anurag said, “Independent cinema, right now, is in a very bad and confused place, because of the lockdown. Streaming kind of became the space for Indian cinema, but during the lockdown, even the mainstream cinema started going streaming. So, streamers also prefer that over a lot of independent cinema. Now, you have to grab attention to survive.”

“It’s like every business. They come in and they are your best friend. They are like the East India Company. All the streamers are like that. They come in, they are your best friends, then they are the colonisers and then they start ruling you.”

Anurag made an analogy that cinemas might go out of business given the way streamers are developing. “Slowly, you will see what will happen. They will shut down theatres because theatres are enemies,” he said.

Interestingly, in the past few years, Anurag Kashyap has frequently collaborated with the streaming industry. For Sacred Games, the streaming service's first Indian original series, the director and Netflix collaborated. He later joined hands with the same streaming company for his 2020 movie Choked. Later, the filmmaker also collaborated with Netflix for Lust Stories, Ghost Stories, Dobaaraa and Almost Pyaar with DJ Mohabbat.