Scripting an alternative to mainstream Bollywood

In Kanu Behl's gritty debut Titli, about a dysfunctional family in the seedy underbelly of Delhi, protagonist Titli (Shashank Arora) is married off to Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi) by his father and brothers. The young girl marries him to further her own ambitions because of a relationship with a married man. When Kanu went with this script to the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) Film Bazaar Screenwriters' Lab in 2012, he realised he had completely overlooked a key nuance in the script: the sexual implications of Neelu walking into a house of four men.

This thought cropped up during discussions during the lab, awakening his awareness to the dynamic between his characters in a different way, says Behl , who co-wrote the script with filmmaker Sharat Katariya. "Bawla (Amit Sial) is gay; Titli is her husband. But what of the sexual implication of her relationship with Vikram (Ranvir Shorey)? He hasn't been with a woman for a while, and suddenly this woman has walked into their lives," he says.

The NFDC Film Bazaar Screenwriters' Lab, in its tenth year now, has in a way institutionalised the mentoring of eager filmmakers with scripts that do not toe the formulaic Bollywood trope. By guiding filmmakers in their first step - the scriptwriting process - the Lab has ensured that movies like Titli, The Lunchbox, Chauranga, The Good Road and Lipstick Wale Sapne see the light of day in an insular market, hinged mostly on commercial consequences. Production houses like Dharma Productions and Yash Raj Films have helped fund scripts that have come out of these labs.

Behl says that he went to the lab in 2012 after he and Sharat had worked on the script closely for over 16-17 months. "Yet, I started seeing my characters in a new light; that they could have individual equations amongst them was a thought that never crossed our minds," he says. In the end, the movie has a scene where Vikram lets his eyes briefly linger on Neelu's cleavage, a scene that didn't make it to the final India edit.

Ruchika Oberoi, whose Island City explores three distinctly alienating characters as the mainstays of three short stories set in the urban foliage of another Indian city, Mumbai, says that the NFDC Screenwriters' Lab helped her look at her characters differently. "The best takeaway is that it lets you discuss and dissect your script with a group of other filmmakers, who are equally passionate about their scripts as you. And in articulating your idea to them, you tend to understand your script better," she says.

What helps is that the labs are attached to the Film Bazaar, a platform held annually during the International Film Festival of India where Indian films are pitched to production houses from around the world. Experts also help participants pitch their projects effectively. Urmi Juvekar, who's written the screenplays of movies like Oye Lucky! Lucky, Oye!, I Am and Shanghai and is an alumnus of the Binger Film Lab, is one of the long-time mentors. So is Marten Rabarts, who now heads the training and development department at NFDC and was also at the Binger Film Lab.

Over the years, the NFDC Lab has introduced screenwriting programmes for scripts for children's films and for romances. It has held other 'labs' as well - a Marathi screenwriters' one in collaboration with the Maharashtra government, labs for projects that are in production, for producers, for directors as well as a longer six-month session. This year's lab, to be held in partly in Sarajevo and later in Goa where the NFDC Film Bazaar takes place, has already opened entries. In the last few years, similar labs have come up, such as the Mumbai Mantra Sundance Lab and the Drishyam Sundance Lab.

Juvekar, who has helped flesh out several scripts over the years, says that the focus of the mentors is on "what does the writer want to put out". "We follow a simple process - we try and bridge the gap between a script and a film," she says. "Filmmaking has a holistic and complex nature; it is an amalgamation of various art forms. And in India, the criticism of art is limited."

She says that they focus on the project and don't veer into theoretical approaches. Investment in a script in India to develop its potential is not encouraged. "We ask a lot of questions; and from the 2D characters that come into the labs in the hands of filmmakers in a state of panic, we bring out layered characters by creatively challenging them through discussions and debates," says Urmi.

Nina Lath Gupta, managing director at NFDC, says that the firm research and development gestation of a project in the labs are helping exceptional talent pool in the film industry. "These projects usually run the risk of the commercial market, and so, the focus is on developing them to ready them for an international market," she says.

Currently, global production houses are piqued by Indian films that have come out of contemporary India.

According to Gupta, certain genres are difficult to encourage owing to market dynamics. "There's hardly any appreciation for satire in India, or say, for horror films," she says. Urmi Juvekar adds that she'd love to have longer labs, and labs for regional cinema.

Kanu Behl says he's hopeful that NFDC is so heavily invested in the labs: "It is a bright corner in a big room of darkness."