Actress Sonam Kapoor has been named the ambassador for the ‘Word To Screen’ market at the upcoming Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, which will take place between 20 and 27, October 2016.
Word To Screen market is a new initiative aimed at creating quality content for Bollywood by adapting more books into films. At Word To Screen market, publishers and literary agents will have the opportunity to pitch their projects to studios and independent producers. The section will be curated by publisher Arpita Das of Yoda Press and will have Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor as its brand ambassador.
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A Huffington Post report quoted Das as saying, “The idea is to bridge the gap between movie producers and publishing houses. There’s no synergy between the two, as far as India is concerned, and we hope that this will bring about a change in the way Bollywood, or other regional industries, looks at stories.” Das and two other jury members will curate over a dozen manuscripts submitted by publishing houses, which will then be pitched to producers at the market. The event will be held on 26 October.
Sonam Kapoor, who claims to be a voracious reader, has starred in Aisha (2010), which was an adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1815 novel, Emma. Recently, Sonam, whose father and sister run a production house, had bought the rights to Anuja Chauhan’s novel Battle of Bittora. “Content-driven films or films that have strong female characters are still few and far in-between and this initiative will encourage studio execs to look beyond masala films,” she said.