There are certain production houses that can be identified by a logo, a name or a long list of credits. Then there are those whose identity is almost inseparable from the kind of stories they choose to tell. Pritish Nandy Communications belongs firmly to the latter category. Founded in 1993, PNC came into existence at a time when Indian entertainment was beginning to experience a dramatic transformation. Satellite television was changing the way audiences consumed entertainment, multiplexes were still a new idea, the internet had not yet become the force it is today, and streaming was something that belonged more to science fiction than boardroom conversations.
Over the decades, the entertainment landscape has changed almost beyond recognition. The television screen has been joined by laptops, tablets and mobile phones. The theatrical window has become a subject of intense debate. Streaming platforms have transformed the economics and grammar of long-form storytelling. Data now sits alongside instinct in greenlighting conversations, while algorithms can influence everything from recommendations to audience discovery. Yet, in the middle of all this disruption, one question continues to remain stubbornly relevant: what makes a story stay with people?
Rangita Pritish Nandy, President and Creative Director of Pritish Nandy Communications, has spent much of her professional life asking precisely that question. Her association with PNC has placed her alongside some of the company's most recognisable and conversation-starting projects, from Jhankaar Beats and Chameli to Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Pyaar Ke Side Effects and the streaming success Four More Shots Please!.
These projects may belong to different genres and different eras, but they share an interest in people who are rarely perfect. Their characters have contradictions, desires, vulnerabilities, mistakes and opinions. They do not always fit comfortably into conventional boxes. That willingness to embrace complexity has been one of the defining characteristics of the PNC storytelling philosophy.
In this exclusive interview with Eshita Bhargava, Rangita looks back at PNC's journey and the decisions that shaped it, including the company's willingness to back ideas that were ahead of their time and its ability to move from films to streaming without losing its creative identity.
“Quiet Films Make People Nervous”: Rangita Pritish Nandy On Why Bollywood Has Lost Its Love For Intimacy, Risk And Stories That Stay With You
She also takes a sharp look at the Hindi film industry today. Is the current box office uncertainty a crisis or simply a correction? Why do some expensive blockbusters vanish from public memory while older films continue to be revisited? Has Bollywood become too obsessed with opening weekends and scale? And in an industry that increasingly refers to films and series as "content", are we in danger of forgetting the importance of stories?
The conversation then moves into the uncomfortable territory of political filmmaking and self-censorship. Rangita discusses whether filmmakers have become more cautious, why public outrage can function like a parallel certification system and what happens when creators begin editing their ideas before they have even been written.
She also reflects on Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, the challenge of financing politically charged cinema and the role Pritish Nandy played in championing Sudhir Mishra's ambitious vision. On Four More Shots Please!, she explains the simple idea that convinced Prime Video the series needed to exist and why criticism was never a reason to make the show more agreeable.
And then there is AI.
At a time when artificial intelligence is entering script development, visual effects and performance recreation, Rangita draws a firm distinction between technology that supports creativity and technology that compromises consent, authorship and human labour. For her, the bigger danger may not simply be AI replacing people, but AI pushing creative decisions towards the safest possible average.
Because if there is one idea running through this conversation, it is that originality rarely lives in the middle of the road.
Here, Rangita Pritish Nandy talks about the past, present and future of entertainment, and why the industry must never become so obsessed with numbers, scale and algorithms that it forgets the reason audiences came inthe first place: to feel something.
"The idea that people would consume long-form storytelling on a phone would have sounded like science fiction"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: When we started PNC in 1993, the idea that people would consume long-form storytelling on a phone would have sounded like science fiction. But the core truth would still have been familiar: audiences always move towards stories that feel immediate, intimate and emotionally true.
"The business has moved from gut feel to constant measurement"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: What has changed most is probably the business, because it has changed the way everyone thinks. The audience has become more fragmented and more discerning, the storyteller has had to become leaner and braver, but the business has moved from gut feel to constant measurement.
"We backed ideas that were slightly ahead of their time"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: The first was choosing to back ideas that were slightly ahead of their time. The second was trusting directors and writers with a distinct point of view, and the third was moving with the market instead of being sentimental about format, which is what allowed PNC to evolve from films to streaming without losing its voice.
"Staying alive to what the audience was ready for"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Yes, there was a moment when survival meant changing the way we thought about the business. But I don't think of it as reinvention in the dramatic sense. I think of it as staying alive to what the audience was ready for, and then asking how far we could push that conversation.
"Success is no longer just opening weekend"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Yes. Success is harder to define now because it is no longer just opening weekend, or even box office. Today success can mean cultural memory, repeat viewing, conversation, or the ability of a show to travel across audiences and still feel personal.
"Star power can no longer carry a weak idea"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: I'd call it a correction, not a crisis. Star power still matters, but it can no longer carry a weak idea, and that is healthy because it puts the story back at the centre.
"Truthful storytelling tends to outlast its own era"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Films made decades ago often live longer because they were built around characters, music and emotional recall, not just scale. Big budgets age quickly when they are only chasing impact. Truthful storytelling tends to outlast its own era.
"When I watch Jhankaar Beats now, I notice the innocence first"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: When I watch Jhankaar Beats now, I notice the innocence first. We were discovering our own language then, and Bollywood itself was in a very different place. We were less self-conscious and more willing to be playful.
"Do the work, always fire up with passion"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Just one is tough, every one of his lessons ring truer and louder every day. Do the work, always fire up with passion, believe, lead with honour and always, always respect everything, the opportunity, the idea, the people, and hopefully the success.
"Quiet films make people nervous"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: I think a studio would hesitate now, because quiet films make people nervous. But audiences surprise the industry all the time. If the writing is alive and the emotional truth is strong, any and all cinema still finds its place.
"The appetite for difficult ideas is still there"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Filmmakers have become more cautious about political risk, yes, but that doesn't mean political cinema has disappeared. People are still making such films, and when the writing is strong and the point of view is honest, audiences are still willing to engage with difficult ideas. The appetite is there. What has changed is that the filmmaker now has to be more precise, more thoughtful, and perhaps a little braver.
"Tough situations need brave champions"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Tough. But tough situations need brave champions. It took Pritish Nandy to champion Sudhir Mishra's pipe dream. The idea itself would not be the problem but I feel the nervousness around it, would be.
"Four women, very different from one another, living fully"
“Public Outrage Has Become a Parallel Certification Process”: Rangita Pritish Nandy On Censorship, Self-Censorship And Why Filmmakers Are Becoming More Cautious
Rangita Pritish Nandy: The one-sentence pitch was simple: four women, very different from one another, living fully, imperfectly and unapologetically, without asking for permission to be seen. Prime Video understood instantly that this was not a moral lesson but a lived-in, contemporary conversation.
"We didn't make the show to be agreeable"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Criticism is part of any honest creative project, especially one that is visible and female-led. We didn't make the show to be agreeable. It was always supposed to feel real, and if that creates debate, I think that is healthier than polite indifference.
"Perfection is a dead end"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: I find imperfect people more interesting because perfection is a dead end. Flawed characters have contradiction, and contradiction is where drama, humour, tenderness and surprise actually live.
"Opening weekend has become too much of a religion"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Opening weekend has become too much of a religion. But real audiences are rarely that mechanical. They respond to honesty, they stay with what moves them, and they come back to films that feel human enough to outlast the publicity cycle.
"Scale by itself is not the same as impact"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: We have become very fond of scale, but scale by itself is not the same as impact. Intimacy has its own force. A small story told with precision and emotional truth can stay with people far longer than something loud but hollow.
"Older films were built around characters, music and emotional language"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Beyond being engineered for "performance", older films were also built around characters, music and a very clear emotional language, so people return to them for comfort, not just nostalgia. A lot of recent blockbusters are designed to peak once as they chase scale, speed and opening weekend rather than the kind of intimacy that makes you want to live with a film for years.
"Content is a supply-chain word"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: "Content" is a supply-chain word and it tells you how fast something moves, not how deeply it lands. Globally, you can see how cinema risks becoming a commodity when everything is optimised for volume and discoverability, but the work that lasts is still the work that is built as a story first, not a tile on a platform.
"Writers are getting notes from dashboards as much as from people"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Writers absolutely have more doors to knock on, but they're also getting notes from dashboards as much as from people. Completion rates, sentiment scores and predictive tools have replaced a single nervous executive in the room, so freedom exists, but it's constantly negotiating with metrics.
"When data starts editing the idea, you're producing a forecast"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: There needs to be practicality and understanding of the current industry landscape. Everyone runs the numbers before they run the risk. That said, data can be useful when it protects a good idea from panic, but when it starts editing the idea before it's written, you're no longer producing a film, you're producing a forecast.
"Patience hasn't disappeared, it's just more selective"
“Content Is a Supply-Chain Word”: Rangita Pritish Nandy On Why Bollywood Is Turning Cinema Into A Commodity And What Gets Lost When Stories Become Data
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Attention has become a currency, so of course formats have become shorter and tighter. But globally, whenever a long-form drama is truly compelling, audiences are consistently investing, which tells me patience hasn't disappeared, it's just more selective. You have to earn it now; you can't assume it.
"Human intent, consent and authorship cannot be negotiable"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: The line is actually very clear: human intent, consent and authorship cannot be negotiable. Using AI to support craft is one thing, but using it to mimic people without permission, erase labour, or build work entirely out of other people's data without accountability crosses into theft, not innovation.
"Originality, by definition, lives at the edges"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: AI is a powerful tool, but I don't see it as a collaborator in the auteur sense as it doesn't have lived experience, only patterns. The danger is that if we start using it mainly to de-risk decisions, it will push everything towards the safest average. However, originality, by definition, lives at the edges, not in the median.
"Self-censorship can dilute a film before any formal body sees it"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Yes, and that's often the more insidious kind. The internal voice that says "let's not go there, it will be too noisy" can dilute a film long before any formal body sees it, and you're left with work that is technically free but emotionally very edited.
"Public outrage has become a parallel certification process"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: Public outrage, or the fear of it, has become a parallel certification process and it can affect marketing, distribution and even rewrites in real time. Boards still exist, but the real pressure now comes from a global, always-on audience that can react before a film has finished its first weekend.
"We've never been afraid of either the story or the shift"
Rangita Pritish Nandy: I hope they see that we've never been afraid of either the story or the shift. Across Jhankaar Beats, Chameli, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Four More Shots Please!, or The Royals, the common thread is our refusal to be timid, be it about form, about politics, about women, about desire, and about flawed people who don't fit neatly into "hero" and "villain" boxes.
And equally, I'd like them to notice that we've kept taking bets on every new wave of technology and exhibition, from satellite TV and early talk shows, to backing the multiplex era when it was too fresh, to stepping into streaming and global platforms while everyone was still hesitating, without ever diluting our voice in the process.
Source - ETNow