Somewhere along the digital revolution, stories became “content.” Art became output. And filmmakers, once guided by instinct and imagination, now track engagement rates and thumbnail clicks. But as veteran producer Anand Pandit reminds us, not everything made for a screen should be reduced to scrollable, skippable noise.
The problem isn’t streaming, it’s what streaming has done to how we think about stories. Convenience has replaced commitment. Episodes must hook in the first 30 seconds. Dialogue must be quotable, memeable, clippable. But in this race to make content go viral, we’ve lost the patience, and sometimes, the courage, to let stories breathe.
That’s why the theatre still matters. It asks for something that OTT rarely does: undivided attention. You sit in the dark. You watch without pause. You feel things with strangers. And in that collective silence or cheer, something sacred happens. Not because the film is big, but because it’s built to be felt.
Pandit’s plea isn’t for a return to the past. It’s a reminder that intention still matters. That even as formats evolve, the heart of storytelling shouldn’t. Whether you watch it in Dolby Atmos or on a phone, what stays with you isn’t the runtime, it’s the resonance.
So no, not everything needs to be “content.” Some things still deserve to be cinema.
And maybe, that distinction is what keeps the magic alive.
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