“It’s a casting coup,” says Zaman Habib, the writer of popular TV serials like Sasural Genda Phool and Saas Bina Sasural and also the Convenor of the fourth Indian Screenwriters’ Conference being organised by the Film Writers’ Association (FWA) in the city next week. Habib is referring to a session in the two-day conference which will have the head honchos of all the top Hindi entertainment channels — Gaurav Banerjee, General Manager, Star Plus; Anuj Kapoor, Business Head, Sab TV; Ravina Kohli, creative head, Epic Television, Danish Khan executive vice-president and business head at Sony Entertainment Television — on one common platform. “What's more’, they will be dabbling with a topic that they may not be comfortable with. Yet they have graciously agreed to be on board.”
Titled Serial Killer, this particular discussion will be about the relevance (or rather, the irrelevance) of the regressive content on air. Why are we so stuck in the saas-bahu formula? What is the way out of it? “We all tend to go nostalgic about the past — Hum Log and Buniyaad – but our effort here is to look ahead at better content creation for the future,” says Habib. It’s the crucial reason why the conference also includes a session on the business of TV writing.
TV and digital
Under the stewardship of Habib and Preeti Mamgain (also the convenor) the conference this year is focusing in a big way on television and digital space, which, according to Habib, is emerging as the third big avenue for screenwriters. So a discussion on decoding the digital platform is on the cards. “The television industry is set to explode, both in terms of turnover and outlay. It has a huge impact on the minds of the millions of viewers. Also, it is more a writers’ medium than cinema,” says Executive Committee Member, FWA, Anjum Rajabali. According to him a lot of thinking people of high intellectual calibre are courting it, more so as it is dovetailing with the digital world. “A lot of interesting creative churning is happening in the medium.”
The biggest coup this time around is that two intellectual giants — Magsaysay award-winning senior journalist P. Sainath and Sahitya Akademi award-winning poet, writer, essayist, critic Ashok Vajpeyi — will address participants at the inauguration. Sainath’s keynote address, on how the Indian mass media is at odds with the country’s mass reality, is likely to provoke much debate, discussion and thinking. The talk resonates with the theme of the conference this year: ‘So Near So Far: Do Our Stories Reflect India’s Reality?’ “We hope it will light a cracker and set the tone, to provoke and introspect,” Rajabali says. “We are supposed to be chroniclers of our time. There are so many transitions and turmoils happening in the country. Why are they not getting space in our work?”
Gender talk
Sparks are also likely to fly in the inaugural session, on the changing gender equation in films. Juhi Chaturvedi, writer of Piku and Vicky Donor , will share the platform with Tushar Hiranandani, who has been under the scanner for gender-insensitive writing in films like Great Grand Masti among others, and Himanshu Sharma ( Tanu Weds Manu 1 and 2 and Raanjhanaa ) and Sudip Sharma ( NH 10 and Udta Punjab ). The moderator will be screenwriter Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh who has Neerja and Bobby Jasoos behind her.
Neeraj Ghaywan, director of Masaan , will moderate a discussion on how small films with strong scripts are meeting with success and finding a good audience. I will raise questions about how this trend will pan out in the future whether niche films in danger of getting trapped in the mainstream and market logic in the long run. The panel includes filmmakers Hansal Mehta, Rajat Kapoor, Meghna Gulzar and Shonali Bose.
Another significant discussion, moderated by Rajabali, will questions three big producers — Siddharth Roy Kapur (Disney), Ritesh Sidhwani (Excel Entertainment) and Ronnie Screwvala (RSVP) — on whether writers and producers are partners or adversaries. While producers complain of the lack of fresh ideas and good scripts, writers feel that they are not being given their due by the producers. How can these differences be resolved and the relationship get more collaborative than confrontational? “The idea is to create a dialogue,” says Rajabali. He will also moderate a debate on writers’ rights and whether hiring agents and lawyers is the only to protect intellectual rights.
The event is also an opportunity to look back and weigh in on the past. What has been the relevance of the conference in the 10 years it has been around, and what is the way ahead for it? “In the last arduous 10 years [the conference] has now emerged as a credible force struggling for the dignity of the writers, getting them their due place and credit in the film and television industry,” Rajabali says. For him, this is important because it has given rise to an entire movement fighting for writers. “It brings the thought leaders, i.e. the writers, and studio leaders together to engage with serious issues.”
And then there is plain old networking, Habib says: “It gets the most respected as well as upcoming writers together on one platform. The students of cinema get a chance to interact with senior people.”
The conference has clearly become a must-attend for most writers. The first conference, in August 2006 at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, was attended by 275 writers; the second, in December 2008 at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, had 575 writers attending. The third, in February 2013, had 700 participants. This year, at least 800 writers are expected to attend. If the organisers’ plans work out, it could soon be an annual event.
The 4th Indian Screenwriters’ Conference: August 3 and 4, St. Andrews Auditorium, Bandra. Details & registration: fwa.co.in
Sparks are likely to fly in the inaugural session on the changing gender equation in films
