I strongly believe stories come from small towns: Rajkumar Hirani

Mumbai: Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani has said he strongly believes stories come from small towns.

Hirani was interacting with the media at the announcement of the 2nd edition of Cinestaan Script Contest along with Anjum Rajabali and Juhi Chatuvedi on Monday in Mumbai.

"I strongly believe stories come from the small towns. People have more exposure to life there. In big cities, especially like Mumbai, all the time goes in travelling," he said.

"I grew up in a small town and we could just walk into a neighbor's house. Here, in Mumbai, we don't have the time to even meet our friends. Stories are out there. It's just that we have to find them and I feel writing needs to be taught in a way that they can become proper screenplays. I think it's an extremely good initiative where the start has been made."

Talking about circumstances of writers while writing a film script, the maker of 'PK' said, "I think writers need to be respected a little more financially. They are foundation of every film and unless you pay the writer probably the maximum amount of money in your film, you won't find good writers because it's a big struggle for writers."

I have seen, in Mumbai, people are trying to write four scripts at the same time because they are not sure which one will start and which one will work. A small token money is given to them for experimenting by saying that "you work on this script and if it turns out to be good, then we will make a film out of it". 

So, the writer doesn't have idea whether the film will be made of his story or not. "At the same time, he is getting paid less, so he starts writing for another script. But you cannot write four scripts at the same time."

About Cinestaan Script Contenst, Hirani said, "First, I want to thank Rohit Khattar and Anjum Raajabali for having this initiative. For years, we as filmmakers have been trying to tell this to corporates and this is something that we are not equipped to do at an individual level and we really don't know how to do it as filmmakers to go out and hunt for stories."

Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Hirani, Juhi Chaturvedi and Anjum Rajabali, who were on the jury for the first edition, will continue in the same capacity for the second edition as well.