ShortFlix, an exclusive OTT platform for short films, is set to market its official app by roping in celebrities and increasing advertisements from November. The existing website, which was launched in 2019, focuses on providing a platform for independent filmmakers to showcase their talent.
Talking to Silverscreen India, one of the directors of the website P Senthilkumar said that the platform currently has 50-60 titles streaming and the number of entries has increased during the lockdown.
“We are planning to give ShortFlix app a proper launch on November 7. It will be properly advertised and hopefully in a month or two one can even watch the app on smart TVs. The idea is to help small and independent filmmakers who don’t get a theatre release,” said Senthilkumar.
“We have seen major submissions in the Tamil film categories, which already has around 30 films. Apart from that, Telugu and Malayalam have three or four films while Hindi has two or three films in the respective categories,” he said.
He added that they were considering launching a web series. “A Hindi web series has been finalised and will be releasing next month on the platform,” he said.
The platform has attracted entries by filmmakers from across the world.
“We get entries from the UAE, UK, Canada, USA, and other countries as the website is available in almost 150 countries. In fact, we currently have eight Hollywood films that have come but nothing has been finalised yet. We are negotiating the price with them and some Korean films may also be available soon if talks go well,” Senthilkumar said.
Talking further about the idea behind ShortFlix, he said that their main motto is to create an industry for short films. “Our focus is only on short films, web films, and independent filmmakers. We are not going behind movies,” he said.
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“Currently, we are paying for the film if it is good content, this helps an independent filmmaker. From next month onwards, we are starting the pay-per-view model, and work on the revenue-sharing model is also on. Maybe the minimum ticket price will be Rs 12-15 per week. Producers can choose if they want to share the money from the pay-per-view or get paid a lump sum at the beginning itself.” Senthilkumar said.
ShortFlix has recently come up with the category ‘SF Mini’ which saw releases such as Ram’s Ayodhya and Black.