Exclusive! Filmmaker Kanu Behl: The theatrical release of a film still holds a strong relevance

In the recent past, only big canvas, star-driven films are doing well at the box office. While content-driven independent films that are not necessarily led by Bollywood superstars are being largely ignored. Seeing that audiences prefer to watch content-rich films on streaming platforms after their theatre releases has become a talking point for many filmmakers.

Celebrated Indian filmmaker Kanu Behl who just finished his first festival round of his new film Agra, at the Cannes Film Festival last month, opens up on the power of theatrical release of every film. 

Kanu told OTTplay, "Well, showing the film at the Cannes Film Festival was huge and right now the plan is to travel with the film to various film festival and doing its round and create buzz in the festival curcit and critical appriciation of the film, showing as many international audiecne as possible before we head to the thetatre. At the end of the day, it is an Indian story, of our people and when I was making the film, I was keeping our people in mind. So the destination is surely our Indian audience. There is a power of theatrical release of a film because it is meant to be watched in collective, it is designed to watch as community viewing. Any film is best consumed within a dark room on a 70 mm screen, as a collective expreicne. So I absolutely believe in the power of cinema that is out there in the theatre to experience by the large group of audience."

In the past, Kanu worked as lyricit for films like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, Dahleez Paar, Love Sex Aur Dhokha before making hid directorial debut with Titli in 2014.  

The filmmaker is also working on his another film titled Despatch which revolves around a crime journalist, and it is starring Manoj Bajpayee as lead.

Agra is starring - Priyanka Bose, Mohit Agarwal, Vibha Chhibber, Aanchal Goswami, and Ruhani Sharma, among others.