This year, Film Bazaar
offered published authors the platform to pitch their stories into box office
winners. Book to Box- Office has joined forces with The Story Ink, with curated
meet-and-greets, networking sessions, panel discussions and open pitch
sessions. Out of these submissions, the jury handpicked 30 titles to be
showcased at the event.
Atika Chohan,
screenwriter and jury explains the process, “We saw the manuscripts coming in
and then as jury, we read through the manuscripts, arrived at a list and had
these really original, authentic rooted voices actually coming to the bazaar.
Interacting with these young authors and their stories, was a two way exchange.
They were able to sharpen their pitches for the concluding event. As a
screenwriter, I was inspired by the way these younger authors think.”
The space for screenwriters have
really, really blown, especially the last few years after the OTT industry came
and business boomed. That means there is that much opportunity for development
and that many more opportunities for newer voices, screenwriters.
“Screenwriters get paid on time. They get paid well. So now it’s a proper,
legit, lucrative employment. These stories that I heard maybe, like even five
years ago, there was no chance for them, even though they came from diverse
experiences. So these stories couldn’t have found a better time to come out in
the world,” she adds.
What has led to this change that we are now accepting
more of these stories? “There is more opportunity. There is a larger platform
that exists, which means that there is more and different audience. They have
formed their different platforms that service different needs, which was not
the case earlier,” says Atika.
