Major book award by MAMI film festival now open to Hindi writers

MAMI film festival's Book Award for Excellence in Writing on Cinema is now inviting entries in that language

Last year, the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) Film Festival introduced a Book Award for Excellence in Writing on Cinema. While the award invites English-only entries, this year, it is open to Hindi writers too.

Kiran Rao and Abhishek Bachchan at the film festival last year; (inset) Arpita Das

Arpita Das, a Delhi-based publisher curating the award, says "We were keen to invite entries in Hindi last year, but felt it would be too ambitious. The priority then was instituting the award for books in English. But now, we want to introduce the award for Hindi, if not other regional languages, because there is a lot of good writing in the language. Next year, we plan to expand the award to Marathi, Bengali and Malayalam."

The award covers works of fiction, graphic novel, creative non-fiction, reportage and analysis written in English and Hindi, and carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh. Last year, a three-member jury picked the winner. However, this time, there are two juries.

"We will have an independent jury for every language. Two members will look into English, two into Hindi and one individual, who is well versed in Hindi and English, will decide for both languages," she explains.

Das says writing on films has not been explored to its full potential and genres like documenting the lives of people behind the films and film journals have a bright future.

"I would love to come across writing that documents the lives and experiences of make up artists, costume designers or cinematographers, to name a few. Talking of film journals, it would be interesting if some iconic films were recorded in a journal as they were being made. I think only Lagaan has done that so far," she says.

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