A new chapter

Author Anita Nair, who turns scriptwriter with “Lessons In Forgetting”, talks about her constant quest to reinvent herself

“Joyously invigorating, and agonising,” is how Anita Nair describes the experience of writing the film script for of her latest novel Lessons in Forgetting. “While fiction is my first love, I need to constantly challenge myself. Hence I seek different forms and structures,” says the author of novels such as The Better Man, Ladies Coupe, and Mistress, besides many short stories, essays, travelogues, and poems. Lessons in Forgetting takes the issue of female foeticide head on. Says Nair: “According to a 2007-survey by the UN, over 2,000 unborn girls are aborted every day in India. While it is illegal to reveal the sex of the child through pre-natal scans, the law has so far been ineffectual. Son Preference for sons, dowry, and patriarchal systems are said to be the key reasons for female foeticide. According to campaigners, many fertility clinics in India offer a seemingly legitimate facade for a multi-billion-dollar racket — gender determination is still big business in India.” The film is produced by the Bangalore-based Prince Thampi of Arowana Consulting. It marks the directorial debut of Unni Vijayan, alumnus of Film and Television Institute, Pune. Made in English with sub titles wherever the dialogue is in Tamil, the film it is to be completed by early October. Excerpts from an interview with the author.

The book received good reviews. Were you sceptical about adapting it into a film?
Not really. As I was doing the screenplay myself, I knew I would be able to capture the essence of the book without losing its layered textural values. There were instances where I left bits out, and at other times introduced a new scene to make the connection seamless. I had some semblance of control. It was also a learning experience.

You recently translated Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's magnum opus Chemmeen…
A translation would require me to walk the way of another writer and see his landscape and characters through his eyes. The very first line of the book had me in knots. Chemmeen is in fishermen's dialect. This was unfamiliar territory and I put the pen down. What was I going to do? Over the course of the next fortnight, I roped in my secretary, a Malayali, to read out the book aloud to me. I have no formal education in Malayalam. What I do have is an ability to understand and comprehend the nuances of the language. The familiarity with the cadence grew into a natural ease. It was perhaps one of the most creatively satisfying things I have done.

Full interview here Hindu

Regional lit largely unexplored in films

Maanzar (The Cat), a Marathi short film directed by Pune-based film-maker, Sumedh Sarojini, will be screened at the third edition of the International Film Festival Ahmedabad (IFFA). Based on a short story by well-known Marathi writer Bharat Saasane, the film was shot in the city. The festival will be held from October 6-9.

Maanzar will be screened along with national award-winning film-maker Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya and Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl in Yellow Boots.

Sarojini tells DNA that his film’s selection reiterates the fact that regional literature has tremendous potential to be explored in the form of films.

Tell us about your journey from a theatre artiste to a film-maker? 
I work with Netex India Pvt Ltd, an e-learning company, but theatre has always been my passion. I used to act in plays and write scripts in college days. I also won awards at the state level. Later, I got involved in making short films such as Shabdkshitij, Office, Autumn Walk, Violin & Cabbage and Temporary Matter.

My script was short listed at Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Tum Bhi’, a script writing competition for short films. While working on short films, I realised it is a strong medium of experimentation and art. You can
explore a lot through this medium and now it can be taken to people through various media, which was a problem earlier.

Full interview here DNA

Healing touch

Award-winning journalist Geeta Anand launches her debut novel in India

“The fodder for this book came to me in 2001. It is 2010 now and I am pleased that after a lot of struggle the book is finally releasing in India,” said Geeta Anand, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and now debutant author at the launch of her novel, The Cure (Random House, Rs 399) at The American Centre on Thursday evening.

Anand’s statement summed up her anxiety for her first book, that has also been adapted into a film, Extraordinary Measures, by Hollywood director Tom Vaughan starring Harrison Ford. The film released in the US in January. “To be honest I wasn’t even sure that the book would be complete by then, but even before I had completed the first draft of the novel, I was informed by my publisher that Harrison Ford was keen to make a movie on this topic. That thrilled me and I picked up pace. I constantly stayed in touch with the production team for developing the script,” she added. Although the book released first in the US and Italy, Anand, who works with The Wall Street Journal and is based out of Mumbai, found it difficult to find a publisher in India.

The book captures the true story of an American couple’s struggle to help save their two children who have been diagnosed with a potentially life threatening condition, called Pompe disorder. Since medical research of the disorder is in nascent stages, there is still no permanent cure for it. Anand began writing the book in 2004 after taking “six months leave which got extended to nine months for the entire first draft.”

Full report here Indian Express

"Bollywood writing is entertainment style, not cinema style"

So here's how Dibakar Banerjee describes Ram Gopal Varma - 'A game changer'. Next up, Mani Ratnam - 'Epic', Abhay Deol - 'Revolution' and Anurag Kashyap - 'Indispensable'. So the question - How does one describe Dibakar Banerjee? The answer - 'A mix of all the above'. Need I say more? UK's Harrow Observer columnist and Bollywood Hungama's London correspondent Devansh Patel brings you Part 2 of Dibakar's quest for cinema.

Film Festivals
Whenever I go to the film festivals around the world, I look out for the documentary type of films and small films which are alternate cinema. There were two films which caught my attention at the Munich Film Festival. One was an Italian film called Videocracy. It's about the power of television in trusting a political agenda down on the people of the nation as the political propaganda. The second one was a docu-drama called Defiant Brasilia. It's about a girl from a lower middleclass neighbourhood in Brasilia who wants to be a participant in Big Brother. It follows the journey of this girl. I was looking for films like these. Both these films prepared me for the political thriller I'm making next.

Bollywood writing is entertainment style, not cinema style  Writers in Bollywood
Writing in Bollywood is changing. I can say this because I am speaking from my personal experience. Let's say, Urmi, my co-writer on Oye Lucky... became the creative producer on LSD and she will be writing my next political drama. She will also be a producer on my future film which she and I are developing. When you see writers like Jaideep Sahni or Anjum Rajabali, who are on the top of their game since years. They have enough professional goodwill to dictate their terms on what they are doing. They are changing their style of writing too. Bollywood writing is entertainment style...not cinema style.

Full report here Bollywood Hungama

Shivajee to approach Spanish writer

Shivajee Chandrabhushan of Frozen fame is roping in 15 regional directors to make a film.

This is the first time such a concept is being tried out in India. National Award winning director Shivajee Chandrabhushan of Frozen fame has come up with a unique concept of getting together 15 directors from across the country, who’ll make seven-minute long short films that will be stitched together to make one feature film tentatively titled 15 Pages (Pandrah Panhe).

Meant for the festival circuit, this multi-layered film will be the world’s window to contemporary India. Since Shivajee is clearly staying away from Bollywood film-makers, his focus is to primarily work as a unit with directors from all the regional film industries of India.

Says Shivajee, “We are trying to rope in young National Award winning directors from Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Goa, Orissa, Assam and Andhra Pradesh. The other directors should have directed at least one short film. We also plan to have Ladaki, Rajasthani and Bhojpuri directors. Each of them will make the film in his/her mothertongue. I’ll be making the short film in Hindi. In fact, I’ve already thought of approaching one young Bengali director for this project.” ....

If all goes well, shooting for the short films should begin by end-September. As for his own feature film, Shivajee has been approached by Spanish writer Emilio Ramon Perez Lopez to make a film titled The Salt Man.

Full report here Times of India

A new voice

English translation of Bengali classics find new avenues

Sankar’s 1973 novel Jana Aranya is often talked about only because of its film adaptation by Satyajit Ray. As a part of Ray’s Calcutta trilogy (the previous two being Seemabaddha and Pratidwandi), Jana Arnaya performs a definite function. It talks about the moral corruption of the youth in the ravaged 1970s. It was a well-written book made into a thought-provoking film.

Celebrated? Not really. Yet, close to four decades after it was written and 35 years after it was made into a film, this novel has enamoured Pradipta Biswas, a first year student of English with the Jadavpur University. “I am reading the translation of the original novel and I love every bit of it. It evokes a different era but the ethos remains the same. The protagonist is torn between his morality and ambition and I can identify with his struggle,” says Biswas.

Full report here Indian Express

Books on cinema: New genre catches up

Aamir Khan rues the loss of a bookstore which was possibly at walking distance from his house. Lotus, a niche bookstore where he browsed frequently and which boasted a die-hard tribe of loyalists, also had a great collection of books on cinema, as another loyalist recalls, it stocked the scripts of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon long before people had even heard about them.

Though Khan frequents his neighbourhood bookstore (Danai) even today, the avid reader has moved on to Kindle —the e-book reader from Amazon.com and uses their whispernet to download all the books he wants.

“It is so easy to read and use. And it allows you to make notes, collate and store it. So, if someone like me can use it, anyone can,” says Khan, who readily admits that he is no tech geek. Of course, Khan’s search, like many other serious students of cinema was not restricted to books on Indian cinema but stretched from books on story-telling, to biographies, screenplays and scriptwriting by authors like Willaim Goldman, Robert Mckee, Elia Kazan and François Truffaut.

Full report here Economic Times 

Eat, Pray, Love ... Hate?

Strong reactions to book, movie...

There have been a few books in recent years that have evoked such strong emotions that people pretty much love them or they hate them. One is Twilight, of course, and another is the memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Even if you have never read Eat, Pray, Love, you probably know the plot already: After a divorce, journalist Elizabeth Gilbert takes a year of her life off to travel, spending three months each in Italy, India and Bali. Gilbert eats good food, quiets the anxiety within her, and falls in love.

It’s travel porn for those of us chained to our laptops in perpetuity, but in an utterly unique way, it’s freedom porn, too. Who amongst us hasn’t wanted to do what Gilbert did: secure a book advance, leave the ex-husband/boyfriend behind, and go to three of the most beautiful places in the world in an attempt to lift our depression?

But Eat, Pray, Love the book (and soon, Eat, Pray, Love the movie, starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem) has turned out to be a lightening rod of controversy in the most disappointing of ways. The negative reactions to Eat, Pray, Love show just how resentful, bitter, contradictory, and quite frankly, hate-filled we are towards a woman who does something for herself.