Dr Kundan Aryal

One obvious function of media is to entertain the audience. Motion picture is one of such well-known and influential media that has primarily been focused on giving entertainment to the people. By the second decade of the 20th century, a significant number of audiences were attracted towards the motion pictures in the industrialised nations, including the USA. Consequently, the movie houses started to sprawl across the cities, with cinemas hugely influencing entertainment and culture industry. However, movie-going culture is now in crisis because of ongoing health emergency that has emphasised social distancing to avoid the possibility of catching COVID-19.
The pandemic, which broke out since the beginning of this year, has become the sole cause for the closure of the cinema theatres all over the world. Nepal is no exception. While extending to his Dashain greetings, Dayaram Dahal, chair of Film Development Board (FDB) Nepal, stated that the Board was providing relief to the people associated with the film industry as they were hit hard by the pandemic. He also mentioned that it was doing its best to revive Nepali film industry that has been crippled by the COVID-19 crisis. One may raise a query regarding the plans to enable Nepali film industry to adapt to a new normal amidst the widespread pandemic.

Vanishing cinema halls
However, this write-up is focused on the vanishing cinema halls which were a popular venue for mass entertainment even in the non-industrial countries like Nepal. Initially, with the outbreak of COVID-19, everything came to a standstill. Later, the mode of distribution has been altered in Hollywood and Bollywood, and the venues of silver screen turned empty. Film theatres in Nepal have been closed since this March and their operators have been undergoing through an unprecedented crisis.
The year 1895 was regarded as the breakthrough of projected cinematographic motion pictures. In the last 125 years, movies have altered the leisure time of the people across the world. Explaining the visible change in the US, Joseph R. Dominick, a mass communication scholar, describes that it has become an important social activity for the youth to go to the cinema halls became an important social activity for the youths. Once the people spent their Saturday afternoons mostly in parks and friends' houses but they began to spend their leisure time inside a darkened theatre, he stated. Thereafter, the movies helped bring about the notion of popular culture.
In the changed context, even if the contents are produced as the time before the pandemic, the distribution pattern of the movies will not be smooth in the coming months. Thus, the landscape of film distribution is bound to be change. Up until now, the average films take months to go for premiers or festival tours. Then, the theatres release dates in different countries, and finally their DVDs and VODs. Now, this is where something called a day-and-date when a film becomes available in theatres and the producers release DVDs and VODs on the same day everywhere. Prior to the pandemic, most of the concerns were attached with windows, a period between a cinema and home release. The pandemic has made the concept of window irrelevant.
Netflix, Amazon's Prime Video and Hotstar are competing over the digital stream at a time when Bollywood's favoured destination is unavailable of use. Over-the-top (OTT), the delivery of film and TV content via the internet, without requiring users to subscribe to a traditional cable or satellite pay-TV service, is getting popularity among the viewers. Stressing the current scenario of people sitting at home, some of the filmmakers don't think that the pandemic has anything to do with films or OTT. According to them, people would love to go to theatres. They believe that film exhibitors survive the massive financial shortfall from the loss of attendance and production and, once pandemic restrictions are lifted, the business will be resumed as usual. People would always enjoy going out and watching cinema.
One point of views is that it’s a good time for content creators because of OTT. It has democratised the pattern of distribution. Those who have got a good story get a platform which probably in the earlier days was not possible. It is said that big budget movies with big stars are facing a challenge because they have to go only to OTT or satellite. It will not help them to recover the investment. But, five months ago, in June, the first film to release online in Bollywood was Gulabo Sitabo starring Amitabh Bachchan. Another Bollywood big star Akshay Kumar is also appearing on a streaming platform.
Even in this difficult juncture of human civilisation, the film industry will survive because it is part of culture that reflects values, dreams and hopes of society. The film is one of the powerful and popular media of communication and a form of visual art and a medium of meaning-making experience. It will remain as a powerful medium that conveys the values and beliefs of contemporary societies. However, in earlier times the television channels, home videos and interactive movies provided alternatives to the big screen, the distribution of the film through streaming has posed a severe challenge to the theatres as COVID-19 is not going away any time soon.

Coexistence
Cinema halls are not going to open until the pandemic comes under control. But nothing, even COVID-19, can stop creative thinking. It cannot stop a filmmaker from working on great stories which are different and path-breaking, and create a stir in the human heart. However, it is for sure that the younger generations will be watching movies equally through OTT. A senior official of Netflix India states that many have learned that streaming isn't just the future, it is also the present. But another view is that the cinema theatres and stream can co-exist in future.

(Dr. Aryal is associated with the Central Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of Tribhuvan University.kalamchi@gmail.com)