Over 200 books being presented at 'Word to Screen Market'

Over 200 books across six languages are being presented at the third edition of the 'Word to Screen Market -- an initiative by Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star -- which began here on Thursday.

The platform, which began in 2015, has grown over the past two years. This year it has books in English, Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam, which are being optioned by authors and publishers to directors and production houses.

The MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) Recommends List has 36 titles -- 25 fiction and 11 non-fiction titles -- and the Publishers list with 174 titles for optioning.

Some of the books to be presented are "Unclaimed Terrain", "The Year of the Weeds", "Oru Puliyamarathin Kathai", "Gaffar Khan: Non-Violent Badshah of the Pakhtuns" and "Interrogating my Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit".

Unlike earlier years, where the market happened just on one day of the year, this year the market will happen over two days.

With actress Sonam Kapoor as the festival champion of the two-day event, 'Word to Screen' is a platform where the literary world engages directly with the creators of film, TV, and digital content.

It gives filmmakers an opportunity to tap into the wealth of Indian literature and discover exciting content that can be translated onto the screen.

Conceptualised and creatively helmed by Kiran Rao, Anupama Chopra and Smriti Kiran, it has booklists curated by publisher Arpita Das along with a selection committee with known names in the world of literature and film.

A new feature 'Authors Corner' has a curated mix of seasoned and breakthrough Indian authors who will speak about the stories they have written and which they feel would travel to screen seamlessly. The speakers include Jerry Pinto, Anita Nair, M. Mukundan, Amrita Mahale, Amrita Narayanan, Saikat Majumdar, Namita Devidayal and Nikhil Pradhan.

They will narrate their stories to over 120 content creators among which are production houses like Jio Content Studio, Aamir Khan Productions (AKP), Fox Studio, Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Roy Kapur Films, Phantom films, Sony Pictures Network India, Dharma Productions and Yash Raj Films.

A total of 27 publishing houses from across India such as Harper Collins, Duckbill, Penguin Random House, Juggernaut Books, Rajkamal Prakashan to name a few, will also be a part of this two-day market.

Smriti Kiran, Creative Director, MAMI, said: "In the West, adapted screenplays constitute a significant percentage of visual creative works. With this market, we are one step closer to our ambition of strengthening the dialogue with the literary world and helping this piece evolve.

"What we began 3 years back is now gaining traction especially with the success of 'Sacred Games' and 'Raazi'. The demand and quest for great stories has escalated."

--IANS

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