Filmmaker Nitya Mehra: Theatres will survive as we need collective experience

MUMBAI: Filmmaker Nitya Mehra made her debut with the 2016 Bollywood feature film Baar Baar Dekho. The film starring Katrina Kaif and Sidharth Malhotra was released amid hype but fared below expectations. Mehra focussed on the OTT space and struck gold. She was showrunner of the popular show Made In Heaven, and also directed one of the stories of the anthology film Unpaused.

While she hopes to return to the big screen next year, Mehra, who is currently working on Made In Heaven 2 and another anthology film, feels expansion into the digital domain should be accepted as a natural progression.

"When television came, people on the radio were worried. As we evolve, there will always be new things that come out and they may give a run for money as they say. OTT platforms have given theatres a run for money but I think each one of these formats find their own space. There are enough human beings on this planet to consume it all," Mehra tells IANS.

Change and coexistence, she feels, define the essence of how entertainment is consumed. "The audience is becoming accustomed to viewing things on their phones, tablets and laptops, but I do feel that theatres will survive. Human beings by nature require a collective experience. I am personally dying to go to the theatre because the feeling of going to the theatre and consuming a piece of entertainment with other people who you perhaps don't know, and yet (there is) the collective laughter and tears, which is an experience in itself. Your phones are never going to give you that. I do feel that human nature will prevail because at the end of the day we all need collective experience," she says.

On why she has been missing from the big screen, Mehra replies: "I don't think I have taken it slow after 'Baar Baar Dekho'. I was the showrunner of Made In Heaven, and also directed three to four episodes. I will start shooting for Made in Heaven 2 (after) Unpaused and I also had a baby. So, my plate is full and I am thankful for it. I am also hoping that in 2022, a feature film from me will hit theatres."