Entertainment
‘The Wolfpack’, ‘The Monk’ applauded at DIFF
Dharamsala: American filmmaker Crystal Moselle’s documentary “The Wolfpack” and Burmese filmmaker The Maw Naing’s “The Monk” received an overwhelming response from the audience at the ongoing fourth edition of Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) here on Friday.
“The Wolfpack”, which was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where it won the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize, tells the story of a family that homeschools and raises their seven children in the confinement of their apartment in the Lower East Side of New York City.
The documentary not only struck the right chords with the audience, but also made them think about how difficult it is to survive in a society which looks down on you.
Interestingly, despite being a US documentary it had an Indian angle in its storyline. The seven children in the film have Indian names — Mukunda, Narayana, Govinda, Bhagvan, Krishna, Jagadesh and Vishnu.
Meanwhile, “The Monk”, which has been acclaimed and honoured at various platforms like Singapore International Film Festival 2014, Busan International Film Festival 2014 and Kolkata International Film Festival 2014, is a sensitive coming-of-age tale which revolves around Zawana, a Buddhist monk who has spent most of his life in a monastery in the Myanmar countryside.
Maw Naing, who was present at the screening, said film festivals are the only “big chance” that independent filmmakers have to show their film on a wide spectrum . He felt “honoured” to show the film to the Indian audience even before releasing it in his country.
“This is my first feature film. I’ve been at some of the film festivals earlier. Though I don’t know much about the independent film industry, I feel honoured to screen ‘The Monk’ in India,” Maw Naing told IANS.
“Film festivals are the only big chance and the only place to show independent films. Also, the film is yet to release in Burma. So Indians are watching it before them,” he added.
Some of the other films that were screened on the second day of the four-day festival included documentaries like “Butter Lamp” (France), “Tashi and The Monk” (India), “Losum Choe Sum” (Bhutan) and “The Act of Killing” (Denmark, Norway, Britain).
The independent film festival, which started on Thursday with the screening of debut director Kanu Bahl’s “Titli”, will conclude on Sunday. Some of the other films that will be screened here include “Chauthi Koot”, “Masaan” and “Umrika”, among others.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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