'East India Company mindset': Anurag Kashyap slams streaming platforms

Director Anurag Kashyap, whose film ‘Kennedy’ premiered at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival, has said that independent cinema is in a ‘very bad and confused place’ right now, because of the lockdown. In a recent chat with Forbes India, he also compared the business strategies of streaming platforms to the colonialist methods of the East India Company.

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.’

He added, ‘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 also expressed concern that theatres might go out of business. ‘Slowly, you will see what will happen. They will shut down theatres because theatres are enemies,’ he said.
Anurag Kashyap has often worked in the streaming space. He joined hands with Netflix for the streamer’s first Indian original series, ‘Sacred Games’. His 2020 film ‘Choked’ was also released on the streaming platform. He has also been a part of two Netflix anthologies – ‘Lust Stories’ and ‘Ghost Stories’.

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