Movie Saints’ founder Kanada Rishiraj on Sitaare Zameen Par`s pay-per-view model

There is increased attention on Sitaare Zameen Par, and for good reason. Aamir Khan’s upcoming offering could determine a new revenue model for films. Earlier this month, reports emerged that two months after the RS Prasanna-directed dramedy’s big-screen release on June 20, Khan would skip the OTT route and make it available on YouTube in a pay-per-view format. While industry insiders are eager to see how the new business model fares, pay-per-view platform Movie Saints’ founder Kanada Rishiraj has expressed interest in hosting the movie. He believes his platform, which launched in 2019, has a big advantage over YouTube — robust safeguarding against piracy.

While Khan has yet to officially announce Sitaare Zameen Par’s post-release plans, Rishiraj hopes that the actor and producer will consider Movie Saints as an option. The founder makes a case for his platform with a simple question. “When was the last time you watched a full-length film on YouTube? It’s not the right platform to host Sitaare Zameen Par. YouTube is for 10–15 minute videos.”

Kanada Rishiraj

Rishiraj then points to what has become among the biggest problems of the movie industry today — piracy. “On YouTube, it’s very easy for films to be pirated,” he says, before sharing that Movie Saints employs encryption, digital watermarking, and device-level authentication to ensure a safe pay-per-view experience. He explains, “We use advanced DRM [Digital Rights Management] to make sure content can’t be downloaded easily. Still, someone might record using a phone. To prevent this, every viewer gets a digitally watermarked unique copy of the film. If they record and leak it, we can track who it came from. We also require user data; so, if someone leaks a film, we have legal recourse.”

Movie Saints gained recognition in 2024 with the release of Jhini Bini Chadariya, an indie gem that was made accessible to movie buffs by the platform. Now, Rishiraj wants to tap into a wider audience. He has pitched the proposition to Khan, but has yet to hear back from the superstar’s team. He says, “We didn’t think of reaching out to Aamir before because the problem didn’t exist for stars back then. Now that the subscription model is a problem for them and if someone like Aamir is taking that leap, I want him to know all the available options.”

Small beginnings

Movie Saints was launched in 2019 with the acclaimed Assamese film, Aamis. The platform follows a pay-per-view model sustained by cinephiles across the globe, offering a space where indie filmmakers can recover costs, and film buffs can access rare movies.

This article first appeared on Mid Day