By Anushka Shah and Kavindya Thennakoon

 Entertainment in the form of film, theatre, and television has, since time immemorial, influenced the ways in which humans think and society behaves. Often, this happens inadvertently and depends significantly on the creator’s experience, personal story, intention, and ability to tell a good story with an effective message.

So, if you’re an organisation or individual who wants to tell stories with significance, and create impact through entertainment, what’s the best way to do it? How do you convey a message without preaching to the audience? How do you maintain an entertaining tone without diluting the issue?

There are several challenges to doing this, but to help answer the question of ‘how’, we analysed eight films that we thought successfully brought entertainment and impact together. These were Anaarkali of Aarah, Newton, Padman, Pink, Rang de Basanti, Shahid, The Avengers, and The Big Short.