Actress Sonam Kapoor Ahuja plays the lead role in The Zoya Factor, and has gotten tips from the book by Anuja Chauhan that the film is based on.
“I have read the book several times and have taken quite a bit of references for my character in the film,” Kapoor Ahuja said on the sidelines of the third edition of the Word to Screen Market — an initiative by Jio Mama Mumbai Film Festival with Star — held last week.
Word to Screen is a platform where the literary world engages directly with the creators of film, TV, and digital content.
The actress, who is currently filming The Zoya Factor along with Sikandar Kher and Dulquer Salmaan, says Chauhan is a part of film’s writing and screenplay too.
“She is writing the dialogues and it’s all her vision,” said the actress.
Literature has always been a vital part of the Indian entertainment industry, Kapoor Ahuja said.
“I think it has been done for many years. In fact, Oscars has a category for adapted films. It should be a category in itself and it should be something that we should be recognising in India more. I think internationally, people buy books before they are published,” said the actress, who wants the classic Rebecca to be adapted in a film.
The Word to Screen platform this year had books in English, Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam, which were optioned by authors and publishers to directors and production houses.
The Mami (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) Recommends List has 36 titles — 25 fiction and 11 non-fiction — and the Publishers list with 174 titles for optioning.
Talking about the initiative, Kapoor Ahuja said: “I have been associated with Word to Screen since its onset. It has been something that I have been very excited to be part of. I feel the stories of books are amazing and great. Sometimes when a writer is writing just for a book and not just for a film, it is not corrupt.”
