During a virtual session of the Jaipur Literature Festival, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) member Vani Tripathi Tikoo discussed how storytelling will evolve post COVID. Kapur also discussed how he uses his Instagram to share his writings and why his next film is going to be different from all his previous films.

‘Technology for viewing content at home has improved greatly’

Addressing Vani’s question on how storytelling will emerge post COVID, Kapur said that there are two distinct things – one is about telling a story while the other is about viewing. He said about storytelling, “I have to assume that COVID will end and then we will go back (to where we were). Then we can touch each other and just touching each other without words is a story. We look at each other, and that is a story.”
Talking about viewing content, he said, “What COVID has done is that it has forced us to view stories at home. And the technology of home-viewing has improved tremendously. But we also have to remember that at homes, not everyone has a TV for themselves, there is one TV for the whole family. So will people stop going to theatres? Ummm…No.”

But theatres will face stiff competition. Kapur explained, “Technology has allowed us to explore that idea (of watching films at home), so theatres will face a challenge. In India, we have around 9,000 theatres, so we’re not talking about big business anyway. And theatres are too expensive for 99% of our population. People have now become used to watching movies at home, or teenagers will go to a cafe and watch something together on their phones. All creation is about connectivity and sharing.”

Writing on Instagram

Kapur also shared that he has seen some of the best literary pieces on Instagram, and said that it is like a publishing tool for him. He shared,”Often when I write on Instagram, I am asked ‘why don’t you write a book?’ And I say, I am writing a book, I write on Instagram. Why do I need to go to a publisher and write a book and ask him to publish my book when I can publish it every day here?”