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"They are not called films anymore,
They are called Projects"
The statement lands with unexpected force. Kalpesh Damani isn't being nostalgic or romantic when he says this. He's diagnosing a disease; one that's eating away at the heart of an industry that once prided itself on creating magic through conviction, not spreadsheets.
In an era where entertainment has been reduced to data points and demographic targeting, where streaming algorithms dictate what stories get told and how they're packaged, Damani represents something increasingly rare: a producer who still believes in the irrational, unmeasurable power of gut instinct. "OTT is algorithm," he says flatly. "Theatres are conviction."
This isn't the complaint of a Luddite resistant to change. Damani's career trajectory reads like a masterclass in adaptability from live television production on Kaun Banega Crorepati to the high-stakes chaos of Formula 1 Grand Prix events, from advertising with director Anurag Basu to independent producing and eventually Junglee Pictures. He's navigated every evolution of Indian entertainment. He understands the economics of streaming. He knows the game.
But understanding the game doesn't mean accepting its rules as gospel.
The revelation came during his work in Malayalam cinema, an experience he ranks among his top three professional achievements. Not because of budget size or box office numbers, but because of something he'd almost forgotten existed in large-scale film production: organic passion. "Everyone came in with passion," he recalls. "It was smooth. Organic." No script-by-committee. No death by a thousand departmental notes. Just people who gave a damn about telling a story well.
The contrast with contemporary Bollywood couldn't be starker. Stories now get dismembered before they reach the screen, torn apart by commercial pressures and too many voices claiming stakeholder status. The focus has shifted from creating art to managing timelines, from nurturing vision to mitigating risk. Films have become projects. Artists have become content creators. Magic has become product.
For young professionals entering creative industries; not just film, but advertising, publishing, music, any field where imagination should matter; Damani's philosophy offers a counternarrative to the data-driven dogma dominating modern business thinking. His core principle is deceptively simple: conviction is the only thing that separates those who last from those who don't.
"Writers should believe their story is the most important thing they'll ever work on," he insists. It's not hyperbole. It's survival instruction. Because in a system increasingly designed to sand off rough edges and optimize for the middle, the only protection against homogenization is unshakeable belief in your own vision.
His operational approach at Junglee embodies this philosophy: three concurrent tracks; one film shooting, one in development, one in early conversations. He sources writers from industry events or past collaborations. But the decision to greenlight? That's pure instinct. "If I believe in a story, I commit," he says. No focus groups. No algorithm-verified proof of concept. Just conviction.
This stance becomes even more radical when you consider Damani's clear-eyed understanding of theatrical versus streaming economics. Ask him what he'd do if starting independently today, and he'll give you the math without hesitation: seven films for OTT, three for theatres. He's not naive about survival. But he's also not willing to pretend the mediums are equivalent.
"Do you ever switch off your lights while watching OTT?" he challenges. "No. You lose the experience."
Theatres, he argues, force a different kind of excellence. They require stories compelling enough to make people leave their homes, disable their phones, and sit in darkness with strangers. That threshold, that requirement to be worth it—imposes a discipline that streaming's convenience has eroded. When everything is one click away, nothing needs to be essential.
It's this insight that makes Damani's perspective so valuable for young professionals beyond just filmmaking. In every creative field, the same dynamic is playing out: algorithms offering safety through predictability, conviction demanding risk through originality. Choose the algorithm, and you'll probably survive. Choose conviction, and you might actually matter.
Even his take on nepotism, that perennial Bollywood controversy circles back to the same core truth. "Access gives you a stepping stone," he acknowledges. "But it doesn't mean you'll last. Nepotism kids fall too, when the story isn't good enough." The great equalizer, he insists, has always been and will always be the quality of the story itself. Everything else is temporary advantage.
His belief that genres don't die, only bad execution kills them, feels particularly urgent now. When a single successful formula spawns endless imitations; think of Money Heist triggering five derivative shows it's tempting to blame audience fatigue. Damani rejects this. "A film doesn't kill a genre. The way you handle a genre kills it."
The problem isn't the what.
It's the how.
This is where his concept of "method to madness" becomes operational wisdom rather than abstract philosophy. In an industry increasingly paralyzed by fear; fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of backing the wrong horse; Damani's approach offers liberation through clarity: trust your instincts because they're the only compass that's never led you wrong.
It's not about being reckless. It's about recognizing that in creative work, the greatest risk isn't failure; it's making something nobody remembers. The algorithm can protect you from bombing. Only conviction can push you toward mattering.
As streaming platforms continue reshaping entertainment consumption and artificial intelligence promises to "optimize" creative processes even further, Damani's insistence on human instinct over data-driven decision-making feels less like nostalgia and more like prophecy. The question facing every young creative professional isn't whether to understand the algorithm, you must but whether to let it dictate your choices.
Kalpesh Damani offers a different path: Learn the rules. Understand the system. Then trust yourself anyway.
Because in the end, nobody ever remembered a film for being a well-managed project.
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