Chennai, April 16 (IANS): Debutant director Shree, who is awaiting the release of his Tamil directorial "Damaal Dumeel", says a film with no big names should be shorter to keep the audience hooked.

"Audiences get easily distracted nowadays. If a film is bad, they instantly abuse it on social networking websites. If you're making a film without any stars, it's advisable to keep it short so that you can keep your viewers engaged as much as possible," Shree told IANS.

"Damaal Dumeel", which releases Friday, is one hour and 57 minutes long. It features Vaibhav Reddy and Ramya Nambeesan in the lead roles.

"Our film was initially about two hours and 25 minutes, but we realised it was too long. Moreover, we don't have a star in our film, so it's important that we don't bore the audience with a lengthy narrative," he said.

"Damaal Dumeel" is a thriller-comedy and Shree says it was a challenge to make the film in this genre.

"It's not easy to make a thriller-comedy because you need to know how to strike a balance between the two genres. The film is a thriller at heart but comedy is derived out of some events revolving around the actors," he said.