One of the Kannada films that released in theatres on July 26 is Family Drama, a dark comedy featuring Aachar & Co fame Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy, Daredevil Mustafa’s Abhay, Rekha Kudligi, Poornachandra Mysore, among others. The film, the directorial debut of Akarsh HP, opened to largely positive reviews, and yet, translating that to footfalls in theatres has been a challenge for the team. In fact, by day 3, the film lost a few of its shows.

Speaking during an X space discussion about Family Drama, Sindhu said that it was unfair on a small film team to be judged on the performance of the first 2-3 days and reckoned that they be allowed at least a week to get audiences interested. But what also worries the filmmaker-actor is the classification of films. These days, experimental cinema is dubbed multiplex film, while the big-ticket event movies are for theatrical experience.

This, says Sindhu, is not the biggest problem. When audiences begin to categorize films based on whether or not they are meant for the big screen or small screen that it becomes an issue. People don’t turn up in theatres as they dub most films as meant-for-OTT and only a handful as big-screen experiences. This is a dangerous space for teams of small films, because a theatrical space and a decent enough performance is a mandatory criterion for any sort of a discussion with a streaming platform.

Sindhu and the team of Family Drama are still in the process of promoting the film and reaching maximum audiences. The team had begun promotions way back in April this year, with the first trailer, which they’ve followed up with a lot of quirky content, in keeping with the film’s genre, but the feedback they’ve been getting is that despite their best efforts the reach has still been limited.

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