Kamal Haasan, in association with the Indian Institute of Technology- Madras (IIT-M) will present a first-of-its-kind international workshop and seminar on screenwriting in the IIT campus in Chennai from May 29 to June 3, 2009.
The workshop will feature some of the best screenwriters and filmmakers from around the world. One of the writers who have confirmed participation is Jean Claude Carriere who will do a video conference. Kamal Haasan himself will join the discussions and don the role of faculty during the workshop and seminar.
The screenwriting workshop will be conducted by K Hariharan, Director of the L V Prasad Film and TV Academy, Anjum Rajabali, Professional screenwriter and head of departments of screenwriting at Film and TV Institute, Pune and Whistling Woods, Mumbai and Atul Tiwari, Professional screenwriter and well known playwright.
"We will be approaching screenwriting from two angles," says Hariharan. "How to turn words into images that you see on screen and also how to do the opposite -- putting in words what you see as images in your mind. Every day, we will have two sessions of guest lectures by reputed writer-filmmakers from the industry."
"Screenwriting has been a neglected discipline even in film schools. While all good writing is essentially intuitive, it is essential to understand the basic principles of storytelling and the form of the screenplay to be a competent screenwriter," says Anjum Rajabali, who founded the screenwriting department at FTII and at Whistling Woods.
"We all agree that it is impossible to make even a half decent film with a bad script and that a good script is the first and foremost requisite to make a good film. But even then we have seen that the pedagogy of the screenwriting has not taken roots in India," adds Atul Tiwari, who has who has conducted similar workshops in New Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Manipal and Pune.
The workshop will culminate with a seminar, which will be open to industry professionals.
The event is an initiative of Kamal Haasan's Raajkamal Films International to bring screenwriting to the forefront. "It's a strictly an instructional event. Basic education is compulsory and candidates need to demonstrate their seriousness to get selected," says the writer-filmmaker-actor.
If you want to be one of the chosen 250 to attend a week-long class by some of the best screenwriting teachers in the country, apply by sending a copy of their resume, a passport-size photograph along with a 200-word synopsis on their favourite film and a list of their five favourite films to admissions@screenwritingindia.com More details are available on http://screenwritingindia.com. For further queries, email helpdesk@screenwritingindia.com