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Film London to fund Shakespeare adaptation by Indians

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Film London,a non-profit agency supported by the UK goverment is working to tap into William Shakespeare's universal appeal with a unique initiative that will finance one UK-Indian feature film based on the Bard's writings. This initiative is the first leg of Film London's global outreach programme called Microwave International, a unique training and feature film production fund championing film-making talent from both India and the UK, which will enable the most promising writers, directors and producers to be mentored by leading industry professionals to develop five unique adaptations of Shakespeare.

For Indians, Shakespeare has assimilated into Indian literature, art and culture ever since British colonialism brought him to our shores. Unquestionably, today the Bard is the best-known English author in India, which also happens to be the largest producer of films in the world. Shakespeare is also the most filmed writer ever in any language with over 410 film and TV versions of his plays produced.

To this impressive output, not to speak of a long history of intercultural engagement, Film London proposes to add one more from the sub-continent. One film will be selected from the favoured five and at the end of the afore-mentioned training programme, will be awarded production funding of $800,000 (£500,000). The film will be released globally as part of UK's 'Shakespeare400 On Screen'.

Timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, Film London's Microschool will be held over a week in Mumbai, funded by the British Council which is picking p the tab for travel and hospitality. Mentors will include Vishal Bhardwaj, who has made a trilogy inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet (Haider), Othello I (Omkara) and Macbeth (Maqbool).

Bhardwaj co- launched the scheme with Film London's head of talent development and production Deborah Sathe at NFDC's Film Bazaar co-production market in Goa in the presence of Gulzar whose Angoor was based on The Comedy of Errors.
"In taking Shakespeare as inspiration – a writer who has captivated audiences worldwide for centuries – it seems fitting for a new scheme that nurtures talent from two different continents and offers them a chance to tell timeless stories afresh," observed Sathe.

Bhardwaj's efforts are all the more creditable because he did not study Shakespeare in school and college, like many other Indians. Shakespeare's plays have been produced on stage and screen both in English and in the Indian languages from the 19th century onwards. Parsi Theatre looked to Shakespeare for inspiration.Before Bhardwaj and Gulzar, there were classics like the Bengali Bhranti Bilash or the Malaylam Kaliyattam. And Malayalam director Jayaraj who made Kaliyattam in 1997. And authors from every major Indian language who wrote commentaries, translations and adaptations or came under his spell: Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindrananth Tagore, Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, Vrinda Karandikar, Kavalam Narain Panikkar, Kainikkara Kumara Pillai, Masti Venkateshesa Iyengar, Mayadhar Mansingh, Laxminath Bezbarua, Harivanshrai Bachchan, etc etc.
Shakespeare's plays are known to have been first performed in English for European traders in Calcutta and Bombay around 1775, but by 1850 they were performed in translation in regional Indian languages.Lest we forget, there was Shashi Kapoor's late father-in-law, Geoffrey Kendall who steered the repertory theatre company "Shakespeareana" on tour throughout India in the 1940s and 1950s performing Shakespeare. Their story was told by Merchant Ivory in their feature film Shakespeare Wallah (1965).Kendal's life story, The Shakespeare Wallah: the Autobiography of Geoffrey Kendal, co-authored by Clare Colvin, was published in 1986.

Modern cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare include Gil Yunger's Ten Things I Hate About You, Michael Almereyda's Hamlet 2000 and Julie Taymor's Tempest (2010) which,in this reporter's humble opinion, can't hold a candle to the films of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa or Franco Zeffirelli.Family relationships, generational conflicts, Gender, Friendship, the outsider, Violence, conflict, the supernatural, Shakespeare addresses them all. The idea of kingship and politics is addressed in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Richard II which was selected for the first ever live cinema broadcast from the stage at the Bard's birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon (and venue for a Shakespeare Filmfest chaired by Kenneth Branagh) and is currently showing in encore screenings in cinemas worldwide and in PVR theatres across India.

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