Bagging laurels

HarperCollins India’s 25th anniversary film wins the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for ‘Best Direction’

As HarperCollins India celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, its anniversary film launched earlier in the year has won the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award 2017 in the Best Direction category. The award was announced recently at a function commemorating the 7th Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival 2017, a not-for-profit, non-commercial and India’s only independent film festival.

The film ‘HarperCollins: Books Create Stories’ celebrates the journey of a book – that starts from a real-life story and ends in the shape of a book – culminating with the tagline ‘Books create stories. Stories create books’.

HarperCollins India worked closely with Taproot Denstu India to co-create the concept of the film which was scripted and directed by Srinivas Sunderrajan of Absolute Films. Sharing his sentiment on the film, Srinivas said, ‘It’s akin to reading a book; one visualizes and feels so much that you’d want to feel the same when you see its adaption on screen.

I was overcome by a wave of emotions when I first read the script. So, while directing the film, my main aim was to ensure that the viewer goes through the same wave as I did; apart from bringing a bit of old-world charm that’s associated with paperbacks.’