ShortFlix blog ·
The people behind the camera, and in front of it
Seven independent micro-drama creators in six languages, from a Telugu filmmaker credited with five crew jobs to a family that posts on two channels.
A brother hurries his sister out of the house, because their parents will be waiting. She is late because she made semiya payasam, which their parents loved, as she does every wedding anniversary. The parents are dead, and the payasam is for their grave. An aunt sneers at children who celebrate at a graveside, and tells them the girl’s birth brought on the accident that killed their parents. That is the first episode of Anadha Anna Chelli (Orphaned brother and sister), and it runs almost twelve minutes. Praveen Jayaramaraj made it, and the channel credits Praveen Jayaramaraj with five jobs: actor, story, director, editor, producer.
This guide is about creators like that, who make micro-dramas themselves, and how it shows on screen. We chose seven whose bio or credits say who makes the series: a one-person crew, a writer-director, a digital actress, a comedy channel built around its star, an aspiring actor, a couple and a family, in that order. App studios, TV channels and production houses are out.
Praveen Jayaramaraj
Telugu · 3 series on ShortFlix, most episodes under a minute and a half · start with Anadha Anna Chelli
Two of the channel’s three series open with an episode as long as a short film, and Anadha Anna Chelli’s is billed as one. It runs almost twelve minutes, Madhyatharagathi Kastalu’s (Middle-class troubles) runs over eleven, and after that both drop to episodes of a minute or so. The talk is the Telugu of Telangana villages, where a dish the parents loved is mast ishtam. In Madhyatharagathi Kastalu, a son tells his mother that this job is certain, then admits to a friend that it is his 15th interview, and that a job takes money or a recommendation. The third, Adapille Inti Peddha Dikku (The daughter holds up the house), skips the long opening, and its titles run from night duty to Do you suspect me?
Start with Anadha Anna Chelli, and give episode 1 its twelve minutes: the quarrel over the land the parents left starts there.
Manjusha Martin
Malayalam · 7 series on ShortFlix, episodes from half a minute to three minutes · start with Ninakkayi Maathram
Manjusha Martin started five series between June and October 2021, and three of them came in episodes of 30 seconds. Aval, the first, runs to 101 of them. The episodes have grown since: a minute each in Ninakkayi Maathram (Only for you, 2023), up to three minutes in Hair Extension (2026), whose notes credit Manjusha Martin with the writing, editing and directing.
Hair Extension starts as a story about making a series. A young woman is working out the plot of her new one, and she names its heroine: a hair extension. Her father asks why she never plays the keyboard they bought. Then someone plays it, better than she thought he could, and he turns out not to be upstairs at all.
Ninakkayi Maathram, whose 41st and last episode is titled The End, is the place to start: on a wedding anniversary, the two families who fell out may come at last, and someone who has been out of touch for three years is glad of one thing: the number was never blocked. Leave Half Girlfriend, with its 102 episodes, for later.
Pinkynayeli
Spanish · 2 series on ShortFlix, most episodes under 40 seconds · start with Puesto
Her name is Nayeli, her bio says, but everyone knows her as pinkynayeli. This channel holds her mini-stories, made as a digital actress, and the dancing goes on a second one. Both of her series run on one rule that sorts everyone. In Color Alma gemela, from our Spanish guide, you find your soulmate by his favourite colour. In Puesto (Place), it is a ranking. The first episode lasts 21 seconds: a friend tells Nayeli that the ranking is about to come out, it puts one of them past 1,000th (surely a mistake), and the other feels better about their own place at once. It has twelve episodes, none of them 40 seconds long.
Allari Aarathi
Telugu · 7 series on ShortFlix, most episodes about a minute · start with Summer Tuition
Allari Aarathi calls itself a personal channel, shot on its own cameras, and its bio lists a making-of video and a food and blanket distribution for poor people beside the series. The first episode of Thingari Seetha (Silly Seetha) is titled Aarathi As Sitha, and the notes on episode 5 thank Sourik Samanta, who has nine series on ShortFlix too. The titles are family roles played for laughs: Indian Mother’s, Bengali Bharya (Bengali wife) and the best of them, Levaleni Attaki Vangaleni Kodalu, a mother-in-law who cannot get up and a daughter-in-law who cannot bend down.
Summer Tuition opens on results day for the Intermediate exams. A girl prays hard, and when Murthy garu (garu is a polite suffix) asks what for, she says she wants to fail: “మన ఇడ్లీ బ్రెయిన్ తో ఇంతవరకు రావడమే ఎక్కువ” (With our idli brain, getting this far is already more than enough). If she studied more, she asks, how would other young people get jobs? Fail, and they will marry her off, and she can live happily ever after. Murthy garu asks who told her that. Start here; leave Thingari Seetha’s 70 episodes for later.
Pranit Kalokhe
Marathi · 4 series on ShortFlix, episodes a minute or less · start with Vaarichya Vatevar
Pranit Kalokhe’s bio says: an aspiring actor. The series go out on the same channel as the vlogs. The notes on Get Together credit Pranit Kalokhe, Krutu Navle and RB Films. Each series hangs on an occasion: a get-together (November 2025), freshers at the college katta, the ledge where students sit (December 2025), the wari (July 2026), and Ganeshotsav in Jivalaga, from our October picks.
Vaarichya Vatevar (On the way of the wari) follows the pilgrimage to Pandharpur. A verse of the Haripath, the poems of the saint Dnyaneshwar that Warkari pilgrims recite every day, runs through its 46-second first episode. A woman tells a man that with so many people walking together, he has still lost his way, and offers to take him back to the right path. The answer: what are you talking about? Skip Get Together at first: its first episode is mostly a Hindi love song.
Pramod Prabhakar
Kannada · 2 series on ShortFlix, episodes about a minute · start with Pretada Jothe Prema Kathe
Pramod Prabhakar’s bio reads like a menu: family and couple vlogs, husband-wife comedy, travel, and the behind-the-scenes of a creator’s life. Pakkada Mane Huduga (The boy next door), 33 episodes from December 2025, opens with Harshitha being called out of bed at eight, late for college.
Pretada Jothe Prema Kathe (A love story with a ghost) began on 13 August 2026. In episode 1, a young man is on the phone to his mother on the way home from Rahul’s birthday party: yes, he has eaten. Then, hunting in the dark for something he has lost, he stops short: what is this? That gasp is the last line of episode 1. It suits a patient viewer; anyone after the love story of the title will have to wait.
Watch Pretada Jothe Prema Kathe · All their series on ShortFlix
RS 1313
Hindi · 44 series on ShortFlix across two channels, most episodes about a minute · start with Paapi Gudia
This is a family channel, the bio of RS 1313 Short Stories begins, and the family has a second one here, RS 1313 Shorts, as well as channels for vlogs, live streams and food. Their first series on ShortFlix, Masoom Ka Dar (Innocent fear), started on New Year’s Eve 2020, and more than a dozen followed by April 2021, Online Classes among them. Children are at the centre, and the lessons are in the titles: four name bhed bhaav, discrimination, whether by caste, by dark skin or fair, or at Holi. The other house style is horror at home, from Ghar Mein Bhoot (A ghost in the house) to Bhootiya Aaina (The haunted mirror).
Paapi Gudia (The wicked doll) begins with an argument about money. The children are bored and want new toys, not old ones. Their father says there is no work these days and he cannot pay for waste, and their mother brings it down to one beautiful doll. In the second season, from January 2022, a song in the first episode promises that the doll will take revenge. Skip Shanaya’s Birthday at first: its first episode is a birthday party with a narrator, not a story.
Manjusha Martin’s Hair Extension has 20 episodes so far, and the 20th is titled What you saw was just the beginning.
How we picked
Every creator here makes their own series, as the channel’s bio or credits show; none is an app studio, a TV channel or a production house. We left out dubbed versions, series made with AI, teasers, re-uploads and stories read by a narrator, and read the first episode of each series we name as a start, in its own language. We did not count views. Episodes play from each creator’s own YouTube channel.
Sources: the Haripath from Wikipedia.
