Producer-entrepreneur Supriya Yarlagadda believes in keeping her ears to the ground for the huge takeaways the industry has to offer even in current times; which is why the Executive Director of Annapurna Studios feels there's a lesson to be learnt in the enormous success of Nani's Telugu film Court, a mid-sized movie that became a blockbuster in the era of spectacle cinema.
"I don't think anybody knows anything," Yarlagadda quipped at a panel discussion at the ongoing WAVES 2025 Summit when asked why a film like Ram Jagadeesh's Court defied industry notions and emerged as a hit. "We talk about the spectacle films, but Court goes against all the norms. It just says that somebody told a nice story well, told it sufficiently, they made me feel when I came out of the theatre, and I had something to talk about. We can talk about dreams, hopes, storytelling, but the bottom line is, did it work for you or not?
"Storytelling, filmmaking, content creation—whatever words we're trying to use—is essentially about wanting to be liked. And Court comes out very cleanly, not trying anything, and just saying, 'I'm telling you a story. Do you like me?'" the producer said.
In the panel, titled Breaking New Ground: Evolution of Storytelling in the Digital Era, featured a distinguished lineup including Ruchika Kapoor Sheikh (Director, Original Films, Netflix India), producer Siddharth Roy Kapur, Tanya Bami (Series Head, Netflix India), Academy Award-winning producer Guneet Monga, and acclaimed American director, screenwriter, and producer Michael Lehmann.
Yarlagadda urged young storytellers to avoid getting entangled in trendy film terminologies like "hyper-localisation" or "cross-border content." Instead, she emphasised that success lies in nurturing an "interesting idea" through relentless hard work, a process she described as painstakingly rigorous yet ultimately rewarding.
"Just because an idea is interesting, it doesn't make a great film. There's a lot of work, breakdown, and grit that goes into it. It's not glamorous. I think when we're sitting here and talking about everything that is beautiful, I'd really like for young filmmakers to figure out that this is hard work. So, if you want to make a Court, you just have to believe in your idea and then put a lot of sweat, blood and hope that it works. Because we don't know if it's going to work," she added.
At the session, the producer also highlighted a common oversight in the Hindi film industry, where diverse films from Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada are often homogenised under the umbrella term "South films," stripping each region of its unique identity and distinct storytelling flavors
"In the 'South'—as Mumbai calls it, although we're not the South; we're four languages, four distinct industries—we all aspire for cinema. Cinema still looks big to us and we're proud of that," she said to applause. Yarlagadda then added how the streaming revolution has given Indian storytellers the scope to write more original ideas, which don't depend on stars or budgets but on great characters.
"I must say, maybe we aspire to still be on the big screen, which is why we have been a little behind in exploring series format. I think there's a Tamil story, Kannada story, Telugu story, Malayalam story and recently there have been some successes (on OTT). But I think that we are behind. We need to catch up. And the only way to do that is to have more writers.
"It's not about trying to mount them on stars, mount them with big budgets— which we used to, we love that—but understanding that this game is very different. And to all the writers out there, with all these beautiful stories being told, I think it's our time now for digital," she added.
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