Entertainment | Deepa Bajaj

Deepa’s entry into the entertainment industry and thereafter in digital technology was incidental. Although it had never been an aspiration, working in films was a natural progression having moved to Mumbai from New York in 2011 to further her dance career, where she was working as a choreographer.

Her journey in the business of film began as a producer for the indie film Unfreedom / Blemished Light in 2013, which she had initially been brought on board as the choreographer. Working on an independent film that was controversial but not perfect, with limited means was a great challenge. The fact the film got banned didn’t help but it did provide an opportunity to develop her skill set further with marketing and publicity.

Deepa helped to set up the company Dark Frames and went onto working as a producer’s representative for acclaimed Indian independent films such as the National Award winner I.D. by Kamal KM and Patang by Late Prashant Bhargava, along with Unfreedom. She toured the film festival circuit and markets such as Cannes, Portland, Toronto, London, Goa Film Bazaar and Mumbai Film Festival and liaised with BAFTA and Oscars award-winning talent during this time, along with line managing medium-sized teams.

At the same time, Deepa moved towards technology in 2013 via project management and digital marketing. She started off with digital project management for the development of multiple websites for the films, the not for profit trust, Friends of Art, she served as director of and for herself. Resourcing and working with IT contractors, she learnt about various frameworks, coding languages, sprint-based, agile and waterfall methodology of development, all on the job. As an entrepreneur for arts and entertainment startups where the onus of building a brand lay on the core team, she developed her skills and knowledge for digital and social media marketing working algorithms and virality, and put her writing skills to work, copywriting content and press releases.

During her time in New York, Deepa had discovered her love for cinema. But it wasn’t until she went onto producing and then working beyond borders as a producer’s representative for powerful Indian indie films, that she was propelled into a world full of great stories, and art! It was then that she noticed the lack of discovery tools to find great content, based on each user’s own taste. There had to be a better way to both discover good films, TV, and OTT content from India and South Asia and generate demand for them, and she was determined to find a way that it could be done. This is what led her to founding FilmTribe, a platform for films and series lovers – a place where anyone could discover, discuss content and find out where to watch it. To refine and build her idea and skills further, she went to the BAFTA Award and Queen’s Prize winning National Film and Television School in the UK for a second mid-careers Master’s degree with a partial scholarship from BBC and Warner Bros. FilmTribe was launched in the public domain in September 2018, with an online news source. In 2019, FilmTribe was invited into the Global Entrepreneur Programme by Department of International Trade, UK for setting up in the UK.

While she continues to work on building FilmTribe, Deepa also had the opportunity to work on a project in 2018 for BFI Filmography, the first British Film Database launched by BFI. She was awarded the Tier 1 Exceptional Talent in Technology Visa by the UK in 2019 for her significant contributions as a leader in digital technology via the entertainment technology sector. Deepa Bajaj aims to continue using the power of digital transformation and social media to empower and disrupt the creative industries to reach and engage wider audiences.