In search of the heartland

Drishyam Films is placing all bets on an online competition that invites aspiring screenwriters to send in their unheard scripts or stories

March 22, 2017 12:23 am | Updated 12:23 am IST

Talent search: Drishyam Films founder Manish Mundra says the platform essentially offers a voice to the voiceless, specifically writers from smaller towns.

Talent search: Drishyam Films founder Manish Mundra says the platform essentially offers a voice to the voiceless, specifically writers from smaller towns.

Aspiring film writers in India now have a new platform to prove their mettle. Drishyam Films has announced Quest for Stories , a competition that seeks to discover new voices from the “heartland of India”. The competition runs from March 20 to April 20, and invites stories of all genres, especially from new writers from the smaller towns of India. All that’s required is a five-page synopsis of an original story in Hindi or English that can be submitted online.

Manish Mundra, the founder and promoter of Drishyam Films, says the platform essentially offers a voice to the voiceless, specifically writers from smaller towns who do not have the resources to take their stories to producers in cities such as Mumbai. “I have met so many people from various towns in India, who have had interesting, mesmerising real-life experiences,” says Mundra. “Their stories are so fresh, but they don’t know how to reach the right people or the right platform.”

Mundra’s new quest for original, “very Indian, relationship-based” stories is backed by a stellar record of producing award-winning films that fit this bill. Right from Masaan , Ankhon Dekhi and Newton , Drishyam has proven its willingness to go out on a limb and promote diverse and original voices from the country.

Drishyam Films says it will option the rights of the winning story to develop it into a feature film project. A dedicated fund has been set aside for developing up to five final stories into full screenplays. The fine print claims the winner will get up to ₹5 lakh for the rights of the story and a credit for the film, if and when it goes into production. Mundra says, “We weren’t comfortable stating the money up front. But we wanted to ensure that we get good content, and could reward the writer up-front as well. Suffice it to say that we’ve set aside a good sum of money to pay the writers.”

The “small-town” component, says Mundra, will not depend on, or necessarily be defined by, the demographics of a place. “It’s purely in terms of reach and access to film-makers and producers. We’re not saying that we’ll say no to good stories from larger cities, or that stories have to be set in small towns. They can be set in London for all I care. We’re just looking for fresh writing, specifically from those who don’t belong to hubs of film-making and can’t come to Mumbai (or Chennai or Kolkata for that matter) to knock on the doors of producers.”

As a relative outsider to the industry (his primary job is actually as the CEO of a fertiliser company in Nigeria), Mundra says he understands the uphill task that many aspiring writers face in breaking into the industry. Towards this end, he had established the Drishyam-Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab in 2015. After two editions, which mentored many significant scripts such as Nandita Das’ Manto and Atanu Mukerjee’s Rukh , the collaboration has been discontinued from this year.

“There are probably a number of reasons why it’s been discontinued, but personally I didn’t find it very effective,” says Mundra. “If we couldn’t find even one story that Sundance would take to their own festival, then it kind of undermines the expectations from the collaboration. It seems working on our own is the best way forward.”

While it is tempting to compare Quest for Stories with the discontinued Screenwriters Lab, Mundra claims there are significant differences. First, the stories selected will be far fewer compared to the dozen or more that were selected for the lab. Second, there will be a conscious effort to actually get the film made. “We will help develop the script by pairing a professional scriptwriter to the story-writer. Once that’s done, we’d like to attach directors to each script and get the film made.”

Moreover, Mundra wants to nurture the stories at his own pace, instead of making the competition an annual feature. “I think three to five stories should keep us busy for the next couple of years.” Mundra says he plans to go through the submissions himself and shortlist the finalists with his in-house content development team.

What about writers in small towns in non-Hindi speaking cities of India? Mundra says he understands that there might be great stories in the southern States, for example, but he prefers to stick to his core competency: making Hindi films. “I don’t have the responsibility of doing everything for everyone. I have the confidence to make Hindi cinema well. If someone has written something in Malayalam, we could convert it into a Hindi film, but I’m not going to make a Malayali film, or a Marathi film for that matter.”

Competition details are available at http://www. drishyamfilms.com/ questforstories

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