Monday 25 April 2016

How did Indian Shakespeares on Screen happen?



Listen to Dr. Varsha Panjwani and I talk about the genesis of the Indian Shakespeares on Screen project.



Indian Shakespeares on Screen 27-30th April, 2016


‘Indian Shakespeares on Screen’ examines the full influence of Shakespeare in Indian cinema and the way in which Indian cinema has mobilized Shakespeare to raise urgent local and national concerns. The project will be launched with an international conference and exhibition at Asia House in central London (27-29 April 2016), followed by a weekend film festival at the prestigious BFI Southbank in London (29-30 April 2016) where the screening of the Indian Shakespeare trilogy - Maqbool (Macbeth), Omkara (Othello), andHaider (Hamlet) - will be accompanied by public interviews with Vishal Bhardwaj, the trilogy’s director, and the scriptwriters of the films.


The multi grant-winning project is a unique partnership between INOX Leisure (India), The British Film Institute (BFI, London), Asia House (London) and six premier academic institutions in U.K. It is the brainchild of Ms Thea Buckley (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham), Ms Koel Chatterjee (Royal Holloway, University of London), Dr Varsha Panjwani (Boston University (London) and University of York) and Dr Preti Taneja (University of Warwick and Queen Mary, University of London) - young diaspora women scholars from diverse Indian states who are keen to introduce Indian cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare to an international audience. For conference registration or for more information about ticket bookings for the screenings and public interviews, please contact the organisers at: shakespeareandbollywood@gmail.com.




Conference and Screening Programme 27-30th April


27 April: Day 1 at Asia House

9:00 – 9:30: Registration and coffee/tea

9:30 – 10:00: Opening remarks by Thea Buckley and Koel Chatterjee

10:00 – 10:45: Plenary [Studio]

Setting the Scene
Roundtable: Poonam Trivedi, Diana Henderson and Deana Rankin

10:45 – 11:00: Break

11:00 – 12:30: Panel 1a [Studio]

Looking for Hamlet in India
Chaired by: David Schalkwyk
From Hamlet to Haider, twenty-first century antic dispositions (Christie Carson)
Against ‘indigenisation’: Hamlet in a modern idiom or, the politics of missing persons (Sandra Young)
Between Chutzpah and AFSPA: To be a Kashmiri Hamlet (Madhavi Biswas)

11:00 – 12:30: Panel 1b [Library]

Bollywood Dreams
Chaired by: Diana Henderson
On Directing a Bollywoodized Midsummer Night's Dream (Kavita Mehta)
Materialist Shakespeares in Indian Indie Cinema: 10 ml Love (Varsha Panjwani)
Bollywood’s midsummer (night’s) dream: 10 ml Love and the Problem(atic) of Adaptation (Sreya Mallika Datta, Anil Pradhan, Utsa Mukherjee)



12:30 - 13:30: Lunch break (Lunch not provided)

13:30 – 15:00: Panel 2a [Studio]

Post-colonial renegotiations
Chaired by: Deana Rankin
Postcolonialism and Transnational Feminism in Isi Life Mein (Rosa Periago)
 “The Queen, my lord, is dead”: (post-)colonial appropriation of Macbeth on film in India and the North of Ireland (Eilis Smyth)
Refracted modernities in Bollywood (Syed Haider)

13:30 – 15:00: Panel 2b [Library]

Bengali Shakespeares
Chaired by: Koel Chatterjee
Shakespeare and Nineteenth-Century Bengali Literature: Patterns and Methodological Questions (Suddhaseel Sen)
Taming of the Bard: Domesticating farce in Srimati Bhayankari (Paromita Chakravarti)
Shakespeare and Contemporary Bengali Cinema: Intertextuality and Mise-en-scene in Hrid Majharey, 2014 (Priyanjali Sen)           

15:00 – 15:15: Coffee/ Tea [Library Annexe]

15:15 – 17:00: Panel 3 [Studio]

Keynote Panel: The Bhardwaj Shakespeare Trilogy
Chaired by: Varsha Panjwani
Vishal Bhardwaj, Director of Maqbool, Omkara and Haider discusses his Indian Shakespeare trilogy with his scriptwriters Abbas Tyrewala (Maqbool), Robin Bhatt (Omkara) and Basharat Peer (Haider)




28 April: Day 2 at Asia House

9:30 – 10:00: Registration and Coffee/tea

10:00 – 10:50: Plenary [Studio]
Chaired by: Koel Chatterjee
Jonathan Gil Harris – Shakespearean Masala

10:50 – 11:00: Break

11:00 – 12:30: Panel 4a [Studio]

Itinerant Shakespeare
Chaired by: Paromita Chakravarti
Immortal or immoral longings? Cleopatra the poison-maid: temptation vs temporality in Kannaki (Thea Buckley)
 ‘Would you create me new?’: Representations of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors in Bhrantibilas (1963) and Angoor (1982) (Paramita Dutta)
Shakespeare and Assamese Parallel Cinema: Politics of Identity and Political Realism (Parthajit Baruah)

11:00 – 12:30: Panel 4b [Library]

Myth and Metaphor
Chaired by: Varsha Panjwani
Enemy Desire, Pants on Fire: Myth and Fatalism in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon ki Rasleela-Ramleela (Patricia Gruben)
Image as Text in Arshinagar: A Bengali Experiment with Shakespeare
(Koel Chatterjee)
Lost in Lear: A Critical Reading of Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear (Shreyosi Mukherjee)

12:30 – 13:30: Lunch break (Lunch not provided)

13:30 – 15:00: Panel 5a [Studio]

Script Reading and Discussion: Have the Shakespeares on Screen Forsaken Shakespeare’s love of Science?
Chaired by: Thea Buckley
Carole Jahme, RSC fellow and winner of the 2012 Science and Technology Facilities Council Award for public engagement enacts scenes from The Merry Wives of Munnar and leads a panel on Science, Shakespeare and India



13:30 – 15:00: Panel 5b [Library]

Talk: The Hungry, a contemporary re-telling of Titus Andronicus, presented by Film London
Chaired by Preti Taneja, with a Q&A chaired by Film London Head of Talent Development and Production, Deborah Sathe.

15:00 – 15:15: Coffee/Tea [Library Annexe]

15:15 – 17:45: Panel 6 [Studio] (Exclusive: for conference delegates only)

Introduced by Koel Chatterjee

Screening of Arshinagar (2015), an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (Bengali, with subtitles)
Dir. Aparna Sen, starring Dev, Rittika Sen, Jisshu Sengupta, Kaushik Sen, Waheeda Rehman, Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, Roopa Ganguly, Jaya Seal Ghosh

17:45: Drinks Reception


29 April: Day 3 at Asia House

9:00 – 9:30: Coffee/tea

9:30 – 10:30: Plenary [Studio]
Chaired by: Preti Taneja
Mark Thornton Burnett - Gendered Play and Regional Dialogue in Nanjundi Kalyana

10:30 – 10:40: Break

10:40 – 12:40: Panel 7a [Studio]

Gendered Shakespeare
Chaired by: Poonam Trivedi
Dil Bole Hadippa and Gender Politics (Bob White)
Untold Spices: The Secrets of Dedh Ishquiya (Madhavi Menon)
Queer Bollywood Shakespeare (Amritesh Singh)
Make ‘em Laugh : When Shakespeare Meets Bollywood; Shakespeare Adaptations in Bollywood and Gender Dynamics (Aysha Iqbal)

10:40 – 12:40: Panel 7b [Library]

Selling Shakespeare in the West and the East
Chaired by: Deana Rankin
From Melodrama to Tragedy and Back – Closing the Melodramatic Gap between East and West in Shakespeare Film Adaptations (Kinga Földváry)
Romeo and Juliet between Hollywood and Bollywood: Bhansali’s 2013 Ram-Leela (Florence Cabaret and Sylvaine Bataille)
‘Naina thag lenge’ — Gulzar’s ocular poetics in Omkara (Shani Bans)
Interpreting the Idiom of Loss: From the mythical heath to borders and signs.
Revisiting King Lear in the contemporary framework of Life Goes On.
 (Sangeeta Datta)

12:40 – 13:30: Lunch break (Lunch not provided)

13:30 – 16:00: Panel 8 [Studio]

Introduced by Thea Buckley

Screening of Kaliyattam (1997), an adaptation of Othello
Dir. Jayaraj, starring Suresh Gopi, Lal, Manju Warrier, and Biju Menon.

16:00 – 16:30: Closing remarks by Preti Taneja and Varsha Panjwani



SPECIAL SCREENINGS: BFI Southbank

18:50 – 21:08      Maqbool (133 mins) Introduced by Koel Chatterjee

21:08 – 21:53      Post Screening Q+A: Director Vishal Bhardwaj and Scriptwriter Abbas Tyrewala in conversation with Thea Buckley.



Sat 30 April: Day 4

SPECIAL SCREENINGS: BFI SOUTHBANK

14:00 – 16:35:    Omkara (150 mins) Introduced by Koel Chatterjee

16:35 – 17:25:    Post Screening Q+A: Director Vishal Bhardwaj and Scriptwriter Robin Bhatt in conversation with Dr. Varsha Panjwani.

18:40 – 19:25: Introduction to Haider by Koel Chatterjee followed by Pre Screening Q+A: Director Vishal Bhardwaj and Scriptwriter Basharat Peer in conversation with Dr. Preti Taneja.

19:25 - 22:04:     Haider (159 mins)