Keynote Address by Kumar Shahani. If it is so often said that the book was better than the film, can it be said that great books have ultimately produced mediocre films. This can of course be argued from both sides of the coin and essentially, what one is talking about is the novel in adaptation. Questions like how necessary it is for a film to be true to the book; how much creative licence a scriptwriter and film director can/should have; whether the best adaptations are those that use the book only as a springboard but not as a Bible – and finally, whether the book and the film should be judged independently and not in comparison – are all points to be debated and discussed.

Participating in the debate are novelists Kunal Basu (The Opium Clerk, The Miniaturist, Racists, and The Japanese Wife, now made into a film by Aparna Sen), Chitra Divakaruni (Arranged Marriage, The Mistress of Spices (made into a film starring Aishwarya Rai), Sister of My Heart, Vine of Desire, and the just released Palace of Illusions) and Jaishree Misra (Ancient Promises, Accidents Like Love and Marriage, and Rani, now being made into a Bollywood film), director, producer and writer Basu Chatterjee (Sara Akash, Dillagi, Chhoti si Baat, Khatta Meetha) and literary theorist and filmmaker David Philips (involved in the production of the 1980s classic Kiss of the Spiderwoman). The debate will be moderated by Suresh Chhabria, who taught film appreciation at the FTII for several years.

Kunal Basu is the author of three acclaimed novels – The Opium Clerk, The Miniaturist, and Racists – and a collection of stories, The Japanese Wife, the lead story of which has been made into a film by India’s celebrated director Aparna Sen. He has acted in films and on stage, written poetry and screenplays, and critical commentary on his works has been anthologised in Romancing the Strange: The Fiction of Kunal Basu, published by the Shakespeare Society. He was born in Calcutta and has travelled widely. He teaches at Oxford University and is married with one daughter.

Suresh Chabria is the Professor of Films Appreciation & Registrar, FTII, Pune. He was the Director of The National Film Archive of India, Pune from 1992 to 1998. He has published several articles on film and history in periodicals in India and abroad. His book “Light of Asia; Indian Silent Film,” is a highly acclaimed record of Indian silent era films betweem 1912 to 1934. His other interests are painting, photography and culture studies.

Basu Chatterjee was born on January 10, 1930 in Ajmer, Rajasthan, India. He is a noted Indian film director, writer and producer. His first feature film Sara Akash (1970), was a refreshingly novel attempt to depict the everyday middle-class milieu and this has continued to be his focus in the films he has made. Some of his best films include Dillagi, Chitchor, Choti Si Baat and Khatta Meetha. He also directed the detective series Byomkesh Bakshi for Doordarshan, and memorable soap operas like Rajani, Darpan, Kakkaji Kahin. He began making Bengali films in 1998, starting with the film Hothat Brishti. He has won four filmfare awards for his screenwriting and direction.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author and poet. She has written several books of poetry, and her work has been included in over fifty magazines and over fifty anthologies, including Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize anthology. Her first book of short stories, Arranged Marriage, won critical acclaim and the 1996 American Book Award, the Bay Area Book Reviewers and PEN Oakland Josephine Miles awards for fiction. Her latest novel, The Palace of Illusions, is based on the story of Draupadi in the Mahabharata. Her other published novels are The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and Vine of Desire, and she has written three books for children, Neela: Victory Song,The Conch Bearer and The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming. Her books have been translated into 16 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Russian and Japanese. Two of her books have been made into movies. Chitra is a professor in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the University of Houston. She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy, her two children Anand and Abhay, and Juno, the family dog.

Jaishree Misra works as film classifier at the British Board of Film Classification in Soho. She has written four novels, her debut novel Ancient Promises was published and sold worldwide by Penguin UK and became a major bestseller in India. Subsequent books include Accidents Like Love and Marriage, Afterwards and The Little Book of Romance. Her most recent book (a historical novel on the life of Rani of Jhansi, called Rani) has been bought by a Bollywood film company who plan to start shooting in November 2008. She has an MA in English Literature from Kerala University and two post-graduate diplomas from the University of London, one in Special Education and the other in Broadcast Journalism.

David Philips is a philosopher, literary theorist, and filmmaker. His research has focused on the dissemination of power in society through discursive practices, particularly popular literary forms, including a structural comparison of classical Greek 5th century BCE theater with contemporary cinema. His writing has focused on the philosophy of language, the construction of individual subjectivity, particularly through discursive practices, legitimation theories of political power, and the relationship between critical theory and literary theory. At Stanford University, Philips was the founding editor of the literary and social theory journal, Dissonance. He wrote and directed the film, Not a Love Story. He also assisted with the documentary Tangled Web: The Making of Kiss of the Spiderwoman.