DUANJU  NEWS

Invited to the Short Drama Forum 2025, organized by Wenwen Han, Bogdan Nesvit, founder and CEO of Holywater (stylised as HOLYWATER), presented his vision of a new creative ecosystem, where data, artificial intelligence and vertical format transform the way stories are produced and distributed. From reading to vertical series “We’re building an AI-powered entertainment network with multiple connected products. At the heart of this ecosystem is our book platform, My Passion. We create hundreds of exclusive books every month, test them with our audience, collect a ton of data, and then identify the most promising stories,” explains Bogdan Nesvit. These stories then become the raw material for MyDrama, Holywater's vertical streaming platform. "We turn the best stories from My Passion into pilot series, often produced with the help of AI. The projects that perform best are then filmed and broadcast on MyDrama. This is how we ensure a success rate above the market average." A different positioning Unlike the Asian giants of duanju, Holywater focuses on quality and efficiency over quantity: "We can't compete with ReelShort or DramaBox in terms of content volume, as they have much greater financial and human resources. We have to be smarter, and our method is to make most of our series successful." It even claims a leading position outside of China: “In terms of revenue and users, My Drama is now the leading vertical streaming platform outside of China.” For Nesvit, the duanju format is not an end in itself, but a tool serving a larger whole: "For us, short drama is just one format among others to develop the stories we create. It is not our central product, but a component of our ecosystem." Each story can evolve, first as a book, then into a short series and beyond, in an intellectual property logic that aims to transform a strong story into a scalable brand. This strategy, based on data and artificial intelligence, consists of continuous testing, selecting promising stories and investing in those most likely to become successes: "Our goal is to transform each successful book into a vertical series." Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

Invited to the Short Drama Forum 2025, organized by Wenwen Han, Leonid Ovdiienko, founder of the DramaShorts application, shared his vision of a booming market. Leo Ovdiienko first launched Alpha Novel, an online marketplace for novels. He quickly noticed the rise of micro-dramas, particularly in the American market. The team then decided to adapt his books into short films designed for the vertical screen. DramaShorts began production in Europe before expanding to the United States and Ukraine. Today, the company boasts a rapidly growing catalog and a clear goal: to reach the global top 3 short drama platform this year. For Leo Ovdiienko, the vertical format represents a new frontier in cinema: accessible, fast-paced, and global. DramaShorts productions leverage the diversity of teams and territories to appeal to an international audience. Platform figures as of September 3, 2025: The DramaShorts app surpasses 500,000 downloads on Google Play. The YouTube channel has nearly 180,000 subscribers, while Instagram has around 330,000. On Facebook, the community has reached 340,000 subscribers. Finally, on TikTok, the main account has around 50 000 subscribers. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

In an Istanbul office, Ömer Abacıoğlu speaks with quiet energy about the ongoing revolution in the audiovisual industry. The developer of ReelPix, a new vertical short film platform, believes a new narrative language is emerging at the intersection of Turkish television and global mobile consumption. He spoke in an interview with Wenwen Han at a " Short Drama Forum 2025" event. From television to the mobile world After more than ten years in the television industry, with solid experience in Russia and Turkey, Ömer Abacıoğlu has chosen to put his dual cultural roots to work on an international project. His vision is based on a simple idea: to combine the codes of traditional television series with the immediacy required by mobile content. For him, the viral success of short fiction is based on three pillars. First, psychology, which transforms each episode into “fast food for the brain,” offering immediate emotional gratification. Second, technology, since these formats are designed to be watched anywhere, even without sound, on a simple smartphone. Finally, social engagement, the central driving force: the constant cliffhangers trigger conversations, sharing, and discussions online. Experiments in Türkiye With ReelPix, Ömer Abacıoğlu aims to transcend the image of light entertainment. His new Turkish production, New Boss, ventures into corporate thriller territory. Inspired by Turkish soap operas that sometimes last two hours per episode, the series reinvents this dramatic density in a vertical and much shorter format. The challenge is clear: to demonstrate that viewers are ready for more complex stories, driven by high-quality production. Ömer Abacıoğlu's ambition goes beyond simply adapting existing recipes. Through ReelPix, he imagines a bridge between two worlds: that of traditional television and that of mobile-first. A testing ground where Turkish narrative know-how meets the new habits of a global audience. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

During the roundtable discussion, "Short Drama Forum 2025," organized by Wenwen Han, Sanidhya Narain shared his experience and vision for the Indian mobile drama market. As co-founder of Dashverse, a mobile-first entertainment service with products like DashReels, he represents a generation of entrepreneurs directly shaping the future of the format. A colossal and young market For Sanidhya Narain, India has an incomparable asset: an extremely young population, massively connected to smartphones. Consumption habits are evolving rapidly, and viewers are demanding formats adapted to daily use, fragmented and immersive. Duanju perfectly meets this need. With Dashverse and its offshoots like DashReels, Sanidhya is already exploring new ways of storytelling. He emphasizes the ability of Indian creators to test new narratives, to play with verticality, and to imagine plots calibrated for the speed of consumption. Where some markets hesitate, India is daring, seeking models that will work on a large scale tomorrow. Beyond the domestic market, Sanidhya sees duanju as an opportunity for intercultural dialogue. Local stories, he says, can travel and reach other audiences if they find the right outlets. As a narrative laboratory, India could thus become a key player in the format's international growth. Through his words, the profile of a passionate entrepreneur emerges, attentive to the evolution of uses and convinced that duanju is not a passing fad but a new audiovisual grammar. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

Interviewed by Wenwen Han as part of the roundtable organized by the Short Drama Alliance, Victor Potrel, Director of External Strategy at TheSoul Publishing, embodies a new generation of content strategists. Based in London, he closely observes the rise of short dramas, these ultra-short, vertical fictions that are reshaping video usage on mobile devices. For him, this format is neither a miniature version of cinema nor a passing trend, but a language in its own right, with its own rules, grammar, and economy. According to Victor Potrel, short drama is emerging as a field of innovation as much as an industrial laboratory. "It's not a short version of the long format, it's another language," he explains. TheSoul Publishing, already known for its massive production of multilingual digital content, is applying a methodology from the digital industry to this new field: rapid testing, creative iteration, and detailed analysis of reception. The goal is not only to produce more, but to understand what captures attention on a vertical screen. The company has also launched its own app, SHRT, dedicated to 1- to 2-minute series, in order to continuously experiment with the preferences of its global audience. In an ecosystem now largely dominated by Chinese platforms and studios, this approach positions TheSoul Publishing as one of the few European players capable of engaging in dialogue on equal terms. Victor Potrel evokes a “space to be conquered” between local cultural narratives and global storytelling: a terrain where short format can transcend languages and borders. Behind the apparent competition lies a form of creative emulation: how to adapt the emotional intensity and narrative rhythm of duanju to European sensibilities? For Potrel, the answer lies in structuring, not copying. Industrializing short-form creativity doesn't mean standardizing it: it means organizing the conditions so that stories can circulate at high speed without losing their uniqueness. This ambition, in its own way, echoes that of the Short Drama Alliance: to make the format a universal language, capable of connecting industries and imaginations that were once separate. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

In 2016, in Prague, when TikTok didn't yet exist and vertical was still seen as a framing error, Krystof Safer created Vertifilms, a festival entirely dedicated to films shot in 9:16. Interview with Krystof Safer, founder of the Vertifilms festival, conducted by Wenwen Han. For him, a vertical film is first and foremost a work conceived for a smartphone held vertically, without abandoning the conventions of classic cinema. The films selected for Vertifilms are shot with a real crew, with editing and color grading work, and full credits. The only difference lies in the framing, not in the artistic ambition. Very quickly, the festival began receiving works from all over the world: music videos, documentaries, and short films shot in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Some directors playfully subverted the format's constraints, playing with the height of bodies, architecture, or multi-layered compositions. Vertifilms also invented screening venues adapted to the 9:16 aspect ratio, such as a narrow, very tall church in Prague transformed into a vertical theater, to demonstrate that the format could exist beyond the flow of social media. For Krystof Safer, this experience proves that a vertical film can be presented like any other film: in a theater, in front of an audience, in a context of meetings and debates, with the same seriousness as a traditional film festival. Connecting Europe to the wave of Asian micro-dramas Over the years, his intuition has been confirmed by what's happening in Asia, where short dramas are exploding in popularity and transforming the phone into a veritable pocket television. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese platforms are structuring a microdrama market, with dedicated budgets, formats, and business models. What Vertifilms was experimenting with on the auteur side is becoming a full-fledged industry there. In an interview with Wenwen Han, Krystof Safer observes that many Western creators enjoy shooting vertically for social media, but now want to tell longer stories with characters, narrative arcs, and seasons. Vertifilms served as a laboratory for these aspirations, offering visibility to projects that go beyond simple "disposable video." The European challenge remains: a continent fragmented by languages, viewing habits, and national markets, where subtitles are sometimes unreadable on small screens. Krystof Safer, however, is optimistic. According to him, AI-assisted translation and dubbing tools will facilitate the distribution of Asian series to Western audiences, provided the stories are compelling. Having championed vertical content long before TikTok, Krystof Safer now wants to position himself as a link between Western creators and the Asian micro-drama ecosystem, capitalizing on the experience accumulated with Vertifilms. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

In an interview with journalist Wenwen Han, Scott Brown reflects on his transition from the world of YouTube to vertical video, a field he now considers one of the most stimulating in the American digital landscape. For years, he worked with some of the most influential creators, closely observing the evolution of user habits. Now, he sees short dramas as a profound shift in the way we relate to storytelling on mobile devices. For Scott Brown explains that American audiences are no longer just looking for personalities, but for stories structured for mobile. He summarizes this shift as follows: "Viewers want fiction, not just content. Vertical is becoming where these stories find their natural rhythm." This approach led him to develop The Diamond Rose , his first series conceived exclusively for the phone screen, with a clear objective: to test what vertical can produce when designed with a studio methodology. Even before filming began, Scott Brown wrote several complete series to understand what works in this fast-paced format. According to him, the effectiveness of vertical dramas relies on anticipation and pacing. "The format forces you to be precise. You have to know exactly why every second exists," he explains. This intensive writing phase allows him to refine his projects before production, in an American market where the monetization of short dramas is still developing. Brown also observes that traditional players in film and television are beginning to take an interest in vertical storytelling, not as a passing trend, but as a new narrative space. For him, what happens next will depend on creators' ability to structure their work, test their ideas, and adapt their series to audience reactions. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han. Discover her YouTube  channel. #WenwenHan

With twenty years of experience in Turkish audiovisual media, Selen Bazmanoglu explains that she has launched and developed film, TV, youth, and lifestyle channels on the country's largest platforms, then under in-house brands, and has advised companies such as beIN, Turk Telekom, and Turksat. She is currently continuing this career path in vertical drama as Head of Content for two short-form content apps, Short & More and WOMOD. Her presentation highlighted a clear industry benchmark. She described China as a global creative leader and confirmed that its teams actively license Chinese short dramas, believing that these short stories resonate well with international audiences. This reference is part of a structured launch strategy: WOMOD targets international markets while Short & More focuses on Turkey, with the same commitment to high-quality short stories and a combination of original content and international acquisitions. Her vision, however, remains primarily Turkish. She emphasizes the strength of Turkish storytelling traditions and indicates that this is one of the reasons why Short & More relies on the production of original content. She sees great potential in exploring romance, romantic comedies, suspense, and young adult stories in vertical format. Finally, she highlights the challenges faced by a local player in its launch phase: high competition, audience education, and anti-piracy protection. Interview conducted by Wenwen Han #WenwenHan

Duanju videos have become a phenomenon that Chinese television can no longer ignore. Their explosion on mobile devices has given rise to a new generation of players, followed by millions of viewers, to the point that they are now invited onto mainstream entertainment programs. This visibility marks a key milestone: duanju videos are no longer a peripheral format. The show "Kai Bo! Duanju Season" was the first to place micro-fiction at the heart of a real television set. Conceived as a hybrid of competition, variety show, and mini-series, it featured duanju actors who reenacted clips, improvised, participated in challenges, and reacted live to filmed scenes. The program transformed the format into a fast-paced, collective performance designed for a family audience. This transposition of duanju to entertainment television revealed its power to appeal to a wide audience. The behind-the-scenes aspects of the show also play a role in the creation of these new stars. Widely broadcast and discussed backstage footage shows the actors preparing, rehearsing, or interacting with the crew. This contributes to their transformation into full-fledged media figures: not just performers of characters, but followed and recognizable personalities. This increased exposure reinforces the status of duanju as a breeding ground for talent. The show reached 62 million households and garnered nearly 100 million online views, figures usually reserved for major entertainment programs in China. It also features 26 performances inspired by popular films and series, a strategic choice that appeals not only to duanju enthusiasts but also to a wider audience already familiar with these works. By drawing on well-known references, the show creates an immediate sense of recognition and expands its audience beyond the typical viewers of micro-fiction. Source : • China Daily , January 20, 2025.

Note : This app is not to be confused with the French platform of the same name, which is run by the independent studio StudioQuinze. This is an Indian micro-drama app owned by the Eloelo group. Currently, there are no financial or editorial ties between these two platforms, which operate in different countries and ecosystems. In India, where epic television sagas have long been a staple of family evenings, a change in format is underway. Balaji Telefilms, known for its long-running series, is moving towards a new way of telling stories: one-minute micro-dramas designed specifically for the vertical screen of smartphones. This evolution involves producing content for Story TV, an Indian app for micro-fiction consumed in continuous scrolling, using an extremely condensed narrative style. When the traditional soap opera adapts Balaji Telefilms is exploring territory radically different from its usual formats. The family dramas, the studio's trademark, must now be contained within a one-minute timeframe and maintain the viewer's attention in a flow reminiscent of live-action reels. For the creative teams, the challenge is to rethink the directing, condense emotions, and introduce narrative twists. Story TV, which already boasts over ten million users, provides an environment entirely designed for these native vertical formats. Its catalog is growing rapidly, with hundreds of micro-dramas targeting a young, mobile-first audience less inclined towards long-form episodes. Balaji Telefilms sees this as an opportunity to experiment with new production models capable of reaching a generation that consumes stories in fragments. A market in formation This movement is part of a broader trend: the emergence of an Indian micro-drama market estimated to be worth several billion dollars in the coming years. The rise of mobile usage, combined with the growing demand for short formats, is pushing local players to structure a new industrial chain dedicated to this vertical market. Story TV is following this trajectory with an ambitious growth strategy: reaching one hundred million users, producing more than 800 micro-dramas per year and developing a monetization model inspired by social networks. For Balaji Telefilms, the challenge is to find a new avenue for growth outside of traditional television, while leveraging its expertise in soap operas. If the Indian duanju market does indeed develop as predicted, the shift towards vertical content could become a strategic pillar for major established studios. Discover the app: Google Play / App Store Sources: • The Economic Times , October 6, 2025 • Business Standard , October 6, 2025 • Vitrina.ai , October 2025 • Afaqs , November 4, 2025