This year will be more about connecting with the audience, says ZEE5’s Manish Kalra

ZEE5 recently released the trailer of its latest original film, ‘Chhatriwali’. Directed by Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar, the direct-to-digital movie stars Rakul Preet Singh and Sumeet Vyas in pivotal roles and Satish Kaushik, Dolly Ahluwalia, Rajesh Tailang, Prachee Shah Pandya and Riva Arora in supporting roles. Produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies, the social comedy revolutionises the sexual taboo cast by conservative stakeholders of the society and drives home a strong message on the importance of sex education and safe sex.

About bringing forth a film that addresses the taboo subject of sex education in a cutting-edge and entertaining manner, Manish Kalra, Chief Business Officer, ZEE5, said, “The film packs a punch about the importance of sex education with humour and tenderness. ‘Chhatriwali’ is certain to enthral and educate our audience with a blend of social message, strong female character, humour, nuance, and lots of drama.”

READ MORE:  Trailer Out Now of ZEE5 Original film ‘Chhatriwali’

On what ZEE5’s focus areas were in 2022, Kalra said, “We want to go regional. We have focused on Tamil and Telugu, we are going into Bangla and we want to bring in more and more stories from across the country, whether its Punjabi, Malayalam, Kannada and many others, because we believe in connecting with real India. Hindi is absolutely important, but the real India lies in all the languages that are there.”

Highlighting the key areas for 2023, Kalra said, “We have to grow in high double digits and scale the business and entertain the audience more this year. This year will be more about connecting with the audience, the people who watch our content and if we are able to do this actively, with the right quantity of content, I think we will be happily and successfully celebrating next year.”

On the trends that will dominate in the media and entertainment sector in 2023, Kalra noted, “Audiences have evolved significantly and there are two things that we are realising – one is real related stories and the other is that people have got used to layered and complex characters, stories unravelling and things like that. With the advent of 5G now, this year should nail it and more people will be watching it on connected devices, so all that is happening for us. Overall, it is amalgamation of good content, supported with good tech, infrastructure and good characters, and we are all excited for this year.”