National Film Award winner Akshay Bardapurkar, founder, Planet Marathi OTT, has a different take on the ongoing discussion of OTT censorship.
Censorship has been considered a double-edged sword and many believe it to be a protector of Indian values on film, and many others consider it to be an impediment to a filmmaker’s freedom of expression. Like it or not, films have to go through a certification board that censors the content quite a number of times. However, OTT platforms are considered non-censored content. However, there is a debate going on about whether OTT content should be censored or not.
Talking about the issue, National Film Award winner and founder of Planet Marathi OTT, Akshay Bardapurkar says, “Censorship can be double-edged. OTT till now is a great platform for every kind of genre and every kind of story. It has democratised content to a great extent and has given regional players an equal platform to compete for audience attention. As storytellers, we have access to this medium to pick up topics and tell powerful stories we could not explore otherwise. If censorship is put into practice, it should consider the expansive scope of the medium and not look at it with the same lens which is applied to other mediums. We need these platforms to have fewer restrictions, as they represent our creative sensibilities across India and globally."
For the unversed, Akshay Bardapurkar has a proven legacy of catapulting regional entertainment into the spotlight. He started with Marathi entertainment, emerging as a true visionary shaping the sector to compete with the big leagues. Bardapurkar is the man behind introducing larger-than-life branding and marketing strategies and path-breaking content and he created a thriving community for regional technicians and talent.