Book to Screen
It is well known that classical authors inspired many film makers from the time that film making came into being. We have many movie versions of Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontes, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway to prove the same and really the list is actually much longer. In India too Prem Chand, Sarat Chandra, Rabindranath Tagore, Bimal Mitra, RK Narayan were among those to inspire many early Indian film makers. So the trend of making movie adaptations of books isn’t a new one at all. However with the rise of star driven movies in the 70s film making lost its touch with literature and movies became more of a vehicle for the stars than a story telling medium. Recently though there has again a movement towards making movie adaptations of books though this time round the demand is for recent books rather than the classics. And while some of the movies based on recent bestsellers like those of Chetan Bhagat have been hits, some have also failed at the box-office. So while Raazi and 3 Idiots have been hits, Noor and Saawariya have failed.
At the South Asian Film Market we have introduced a section called the Book to Screen to help build a bridge between publishers and authors with book rights and film makers looking for good stories to tell. With an ever increasing demand for riveting stories and film makers under pressure to tell stories well, it is reassuring to any film maker to already have a book in hand. It not only inspires a film maker with an existing story but also provides the skeleton on which s/he can then weave a tight screenplay. It also reassures producers that a good story is already in place so the right first step towards making the film has been taken. Investors therefore find it reassuring to bank on a project which is based on a book.
At SAFM with its large pool of investors, producers and HNIs authors and publishers find the right audience to tap to sell their book rights and film makers find the books which can inspire them. So it’s a coming together of all three sides of the triangle of storytelling. Publishers, producers and film makers after all are all looking for the next big story to tell on screen. SAFM is the bridge on which the two ends of the spectrum, the publishers on one hand and the producers and film makers on the other, come together to start a new journey of storytelling. We are looking forward now to announcing a new film or web series which is based on a book whose rights were sold at SAFM.
