You can read a pitch and ignore it. It's harder to ignore the receipts of people who put their own life on the line for it.
Raised $80K to travel the world chasing untold stories. Stumbled into AI filmmaking in France. Came back, ran a 6-hour AI hackathon in Bangalore. Then moved a team of five to Mumbai with $0 and 25 days on the clock.
Wound down a funded venture. Gave the money back. Now structures the Thinker's Pod and writes the scripts behind every LocalHost film.
None of us are doing anything else. We exited startups, killed Ivy League offers, walked away from cushy jobs. No backup plan. No second tab open.
One audacious idea, two festivals, fifty million views. In nine months.
We stumbled into AI filmmaking somewhere in France. Came back to India and ran a six-hour AI hackathon in Bangalore. The films were rough. But people shipped something in six hours. That was the moment.
So a team of five moved to Mumbai. 25 days on the clock. The plan: host India's first AI Film Festival at the Royal Opera House — the only opera house in the country, built in 1911. We had no business being there.
One tweet. 1,400 teams applied. Seven days trending on X India. $30K target became $150K in sponsorships. The festival sold out. Bollywood was the jury. The films were actually good.
Then we did it again at Qutub Minar. A UNESCO World Heritage Site. Permits usually take six months. We got the venue in seven days. The India AI Film Festival happened. 50 million views.
We figured out two things. We love storytelling. We love virality. They're not opposites — they're the same skill pointed at two different audiences. So we're going all in.
Team of five. 25 days on the clock. Hardeep and Chandan landed with $0 in the bank and the goal of throwing the country's first AI film festival at the Royal Opera House. Most people laughed.
Make a 10-second AI film. If it moves us, we fly you to Bombay from anywhere in the world. The tweet broke containment. Trended on X India for seven days straight. The $30K target turned into $150K in sponsorships.
The only opera house in India. A 113-year-old stage. Booked for AI films. The jury was Bollywood — actors, directors, cinematographers — judging AI films like they were Cannes. The films were actually good.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site. A 12th-century monument the government usually takes six months to permit. We organized the festival in 15 days. We didn't have the venue for ten of them. We got it in seven.
Two festivals. Same playbook. 50 million views across platforms. Directors, investors, actors. We didn't have money in the bank when we started. We still got the people. The money followed.
"A group of 20-somethings made Bollywood sit up and take notice of how Artificial Intelligence can reshape entertainment. Their brainchild — the Mumbai AI Film Festival — pulled celebrities, sponsors, and the country's biggest tech writers into a 113-year-old opera house and called it cinema."
Delhi will host its first-ever India AI Film Festival (IAFF) on February 17, set against the historic Qutub Minar — a national stage for what LocalHost calls "the next language of cinema."
There is a category error that most people make when engaging with the recently concluded Mumbai AI Film Festival (MAFF). What LocalHost has produced isn't a tech demo. "The first festival to treat AI films as cinema, not a stunt."
Mumbai witnessed a historic moment in cinema and technology as the Mumbai AI Filmmaking Festival opened to a packed Royal Opera House — Bollywood's most decorated directors in the front row, applauding AI-generated short films.
Set against the backdrop of the historic Qutub Minar, the event aims to show how AI is changing storytelling, visuals and filmmaking. LocalHost is curating what may become the country's most-watched AI cinema slate.
When filmmakers met futurists. What surprised me most was how international it felt — LocalHost has somehow turned a Bombay opera house into a magnet for the most interesting AI filmmakers on Earth.
"We trended on Twitter India for seven days straight." — what started as a single tweet asking filmmakers for 10-second AI films turned into the most-watched cinema-tech moment of the year.
The film festival, organizers say, is an extension of a vision LocalHost has already proven at scale. "Our first course was launched by people who watched MAFF and decided they wanted one too."
A 20-month-old company. A two-festival track record. Eight national outlets and counting — plus a $10M AI film studio partnership covered by Variety.
Two festivals. One playbook. Receipts on every line.
Real tweets, lazy-loaded as you scroll. These are the receipts, not a screenshot of them.
The tweet that broke containment. Trended for 7 days. Bollywood DMed us back. The festival sold out.
We aren't running a studio. We're running a production machine — three independent cells. Each pod owns an output. Each pod ships every week.
The build-space team. Technical and content R&D. Where the next experiment becomes the next film.
Production cells that churn out AI films. Bharat's team is the first pod, the second is being staffed. Goal: 4 AI films a month out of LocalHost.
The amplification layer. Distribution, narrative, and the public face of LocalHost. Structure being finalized.
One billion humans who watched a thing we made and
felt something they didn't expect to feel.
Not impressions. Not eyeballs. Souls.
Quick thing about us: the filmmakers in our pods are already using your tool. Nobody told them to. They just reach for it. Today we're hitting rate-limit ceilings on every major AI platform. Unblocking that is the highest-leverage thing on our table.
We're easy to find. We answer fast. We'd rather be on a 30-min call than write another pitch deck. And we'd rather earn the credits than ask for them.