Over the past couple of years, the Indian film industry has seen this strange kind of change. With misogynistic and propaganda led action films dominating the box office and romances that try to be funny but just end up being corny somewhat floating, the movie business has taken a turn with no sight of what direction to actually turn to. But of course, there are outliers. There are movies made by independent film makers, smaller production houses and people who want to tell the stories of the people of India, sequestered in pockets of the internet.

One of the biggest problems these indie projects face, other than getting the film made in the first place is finding the right distributor. It’s extremely hard to find a platform who can give them the space to highlight their hard work. 

Enter Brew TV. 

The idea came from its founder, Ankur Singla, who struggled to find a profitable way to distribute his own film. The platform’s aim is to change the fact that distribution for movies and television is broken, and existing platforms tend to serve themselves rather than the people who make the work. It wants to hand control back to filmmakers. Filmmakers keep 80 percent of net revenue, while Brew TV takes 20, and the company says it will be transparent about how that revenue flows. Each film also gets its own page designed to work on phones and TV screens, with room for extras such as Q&As and episodic or vertical content.

Filmmakers upload directly, the film goes through a quality check, and they set their own prices and territories. The platform says all of this can happen within 48 hours, which it compares to premiering on a video-sharing site. For a debut short or a small feature, that is a far cry from months of waiting on a distributor’s schedule. Many filmmakers can make a film but have no idea how to sell it. The platform offers guides and tools for running ads, reading real-time analytics and building campaigns.

At Brew TV, the filmmakers are also customers. They are trying to change an industry in which where independent creators have long been asked to accept opaque terms in exchange for exposure, a platform that puts its percentages on the front page is at least starting the conversation in the right place.

Check out Brew TV here.

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