It may still be too early to speak with certainty about the actual revenue generated by releasing a film on YouTube—particularly a film such as Bi Dad (No More), which has simultaneously been exposed to reposting on Telegram channels and other unofficial platforms. But one point can no longer be ignored: cinema no longer necessarily needs movie theaters in order to be seen.
When the owners of a film decide to make their work directly available to audiences on a public platform, they are effectively setting aside part of the traditional logic of theatrical release—a logic in which filmmakers must navigate a maze of permits, determine a theatrical release group, find a theater, advertise, distribute, negotiate the theater’s share, the distributor’s share, and numerous other percentages, as well as visible and sometimes hidden forms of favoritism and patronage, before their film can even reach its audience.
Under the traditional model, a film must pass through a series of gates before encountering its audience. YouTube and other digital platforms, however, have largely removed these gates.
I do not know exactly how much revenue the producers of Bi Dad have generated from releasing the film on YouTube, or whether that revenue has ultimately exceeded what they might have earned through a theatrical release. Such a comparison would require precise information about contracts, the actual number of monetized views, the countries in which viewers watched the film, the types of advertisements served, and the platform’s share. But even if the final figure is not particularly impressive, the decision to take this route is itself a sign of a larger transformation: the filmmaker is beginning to treat access, rather than theatrical release, as the central issue. That is not a minor change.
In Iran, the situation is, of course, more complicated. A film uploaded to YouTube may be reposted on Telegram channels only hours or days later. Direct revenue for the rights holder therefore does not necessarily reflect the film’s actual audience. Part of the film’s potential economy is lost in the process, while unauthorized copying remains a persistent problem. Yet even these reposts reveal an important truth: audiences are no longer necessarily willing to wait for the official industry to decide what film they should watch, when they should watch it, and where. Audiences find their own routes—and perhaps this is precisely where the traditional model of cinema begins to enter a crisis.
Cinema Is No Longer Just a Theater
For decades, the very definition of “release” was almost inseparable from the movie theater. A film had to enter the official circuit, appear on the big screen, and then wait for audiences to come to it. Today, however, this relationship is being reversed. A film can be made at home, produced by a small team, released on an online platform, promoted through social media, and accessed directly by its audience. Under such circumstances, the movie theater ceases to be the “sole gateway to the market” and becomes one of several possible gateways.
In this new model, the idea of a “personal audience” becomes increasingly important. A filmmaker is no longer simply the owner of a film; they can also become the owner of a community of viewers.
Global examples illustrate this transformation clearly. Young creators who began their careers on YouTube and through independent content production have built their audiences before entering the formal structures of the film industry. They have spent years producing, experimenting, learning about audience tastes, and even developing marketing skills in the digital sphere. When they eventually enter professional cinema, they do not arrive empty-handed. They possess something that many traditional filmmakers spend enormous amounts of money trying to acquire: an audience.
Films such as Back Room and Absession can also be considered within this framework. Regardless of their structural and economic differences from Iranian examples, what matters in the experience of the new generation of filmmakers is that some of them have first built an audience and professional credibility on YouTube before entering the more formal market. For this generation, YouTube is simultaneously a film school, an audience-research laboratory, an advertising medium, and a launchpad into the professional industry. This is something Iranian cinema should take seriously.
Do Production and Exhibition Permits Have an Expiration Date?
Perhaps we still cannot say that production permits and exhibition licenses will disappear anytime soon. But we can ask: if technology makes it possible to produce and distribute films outside the control of traditional structures, how long can those structures continue to operate according to the logic of the past?
The new generation of filmmakers may no longer be willing to wait for years to enter a closed system. Cameras have become more accessible. Editing and visual-effects software has become more readily available. Artificial intelligence will reduce the cost of certain stages of production. Distribution platforms are no longer limited to television networks and movie theaters. Under these circumstances, the boundaries between “filmmaker,” “YouTuber,” “content creator,” and even “audience member” are gradually collapsing.
A young person who makes a short film today with a smartphone and a laptop may make a feature film tomorrow and show it to millions of people without passing through the traditional channels. This is precisely where underground cinema may acquire a new meaning.
Underground cinema is no longer necessarily a film made in a basement and passed around in a limited number of copies. The underground cinema of the future may be cinema produced and distributed outside official structures while still having a public presence, a substantial audience, and even significant revenue. And that is a major paradox: something that was once considered marginal can gradually become central.
Artificial Intelligence and the End of Production’s Monopoly
Artificial intelligence may also transform the economics of film production. From design and pre-production to visual effects, sound, editing, promotional materials, and even the development of ideas, many stages of production are already changing. As a result, the cost of entering cinema will fall for some members of the new generation.
But this development is both an opportunity and a threat. It is an opportunity because talents who previously had no way of entering the film industry can now make themselves visible. It is a threat because if official structures continue to imagine cinema as the same industry they knew in previous decades, they may end up losing a significant part of the future.
The Real Issue Is Understanding the Change
The future of Iranian cinema is not simply a matter of what the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance chooses to permit or prohibit. The issue is deeper than that. If a cultural structure wants to regulate cinema, it must first understand how cinema itself is changing. You cannot manage the entertainment industry of the platform age using rules designed for the era of limited movie theaters.
If policymakers focus only on prohibition, filtering, permits, and control, they may end up pushing a movement into the digital underground rather than eliminating it—a space that is far more difficult to control.
Under these circumstances, a day may come when official cinema is still preoccupied with obtaining permits, determining theatrical releases, and dividing box-office percentages, while audiences and filmmakers are somewhere else, busy making and watching cinema. The challenge then becomes this: will official cinema still be the primary cinema of society?
Bi Dad may still be an exception. Perhaps the economics of this model have not yet matured, and perhaps YouTube and other platforms cannot easily replace movie theaters. But the history of media rarely begins with sudden replacement. It begins with exceptions.
A film is released on YouTube. It finds an audience. The filmmaker realizes that reaching an audience does not necessarily require a movie theater. The next filmmaker chooses this route more consciously. Then the platforms develop viable economic models, and eventually a new structure emerges.
For this reason, the significance of Bi Dad may lie not in how much revenue it generates, but in the glimpse of the future it offers us. Cinema is shedding its old skin—from the way films are made to the way they are distributed, from the economics of production to the relationship between filmmaker and audience. A new generation is emerging that will not necessarily enter cinema through the front door. And if Iranian cinema fails to take this global transformation seriously, it may one day discover that so-called “underground cinema” is no longer underground at all; it is on everyone’s screen.
By then, there may be little that permits, licenses, and official structures can do, because audiences will have found their own way before waiting for permission.
© 2026. Phoenix Review