At WIFF 2025, Kabeer Khurana, Deepa Gahlot and Siddharth Kak examined independent cinema, technology, exhibition, audiences and the need to build new collaborative models for the future of Indian filmmaking and its changing landscape.

The Film Can Be Made. But Who Will See It? 

One of the most urgent questions facing independent cinema today is also one of its oldest: once the film has been made, how does it find its audience? 

That question became the starting point of a wide-ranging conversation at the Waterfront Indie Film Festival Mumbai 2025, at SOCIAL Versova, where filmmaker and festival voice Kabeer Khurana spoke with film critic, curator and writer Deepa Gahlot and filmmaker, television professional and cultural chronicler Siddharth Kak about the changing landscape of Indian cinema.

The discussion, held as part of WIFF Mumbai’s 2025 programme and looking ahead to the festival’s second edition in 2026, moved beyond the familiar lament that independent films struggle for screens. Instead, it asked whether the independent film community needs to fundamentally rethink how it makes, distributes, markets and experiences cinema.

The paradox is striking. Technology has made filmmaking more accessible than ever. A filmmaker with a good mobile phone can shoot, edit and even finish a film without access to the expensive infrastructure that once stood between an idea and the screen. Yet, as Gahlot pointed out, the easier it has become to make a film, the harder it seems to have become to reach the right audience.

Multiplexes remain dominated by star-driven and large-production films. OTT, once imagined as a great democratic opening for independent cinema, has itself become increasingly concentrated around major production houses and commercially viable content. Even when platforms such as YouTube offer an open door, the question remains: how does a filmmaker tell the audience that the film exists?

Technology Has Changed Cinema, Not Discovery

Kak expanded the question by pointing to the remarkable possibilities offered by mobile technology. Today, he argued, a mobile phone can become a filmmaking instrument capable of producing images that can even be shown on a large screen.

But the democratisation of technology brings its own challenge. If everyone can make a film, what distinguishes filmmaking from simply recording something? The answer, the conversation suggested, lies in cinematic thinking — in approaching the medium with intention, creativity and an understanding of storytelling rather than merely using technology because it is available.

The more profound question, however, remains audience discovery. A filmmaker might make a complex documentary about a social issue and find only five people in the immediate neighbourhood interested in seeing it. But those five people could become thousands, even lakhs, if the film reaches the town, the country or the world where its potential audience exists.

The problem is therefore not necessarily the absence of an audience. It is the absence of systems capable of connecting the audience to the film.

From Film Societies To Film Communities

Kak offered an intriguing way of thinking about that problem: cooperation and aggregation. He invoked the example of Amul and the way its cooperative structure transformed individual stakeholders into a collective force. He also recalled Manthan, the film associated with Shyam Benegal, which famously drew financial contributions from milk farmers.

The larger idea was not simply crowdfunding. It was stake-holding. Could independent cinema create similar structures in which audiences become participants rather than passive consumers?

Gahlot identified the missing link: creative people are often good at making films, curating programmes and starting film societies, but may not necessarily possess the business, marketing or entrepreneurial skills needed to scale those initiatives. Independent cinema, therefore, may need not just filmmakers and critics, but people who understand economics, audience development, marketing and distribution.

What Does “New Cinema” Mean?

The conversation then moved from distribution to the more fundamental question of what the cinema of the future should actually be about.

For Kak, the answer was simple: it must reflect the present. Cinema should engage with the issues confronting society today and, ideally, offer audiences an opportunity to imagine a better tomorrow. That does not mean every film has to be grim or issue-driven.

Gahlot emphasised that contemporary filmmaking can also explore positive, progressive and forward-looking ideas. What matters is that it reflects its time. This led naturally into a discussion of the evolution of Indian parallel cinema. The social concerns that once defined that movement — marginalisation, class, deprivation and minority identities — have not disappeared. But the landscape of concerns has expanded.

Caste, religion and identity have increasingly become unavoidable subjects. Climate change and the environment represent another enormous area for contemporary filmmakers. Gahlot pointed to the emergence of films such as Dhadak 2 and Homebound as examples of how questions around caste, identity and social inequality are entering mainstream cinematic conversations with a force that can no longer be ignored. 

WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE