To me, books are more important than films: Vishal Bhardwaj

Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj, whose films "Maqbool", "Omkara" and "Haider" are Indian adaptations of William Shakespeare's works, says it's important to have an essence of good literature in cinema.

At the 18th Jio MAMI Film Festival on Wednesday, Bhardwaj said: "It is very important to bring literature into cinema. To me, books are more important than films. Because if you don't have good books or literature, we don't have good writers. So in order to create good writers we have to encourage books. More literature will make more good films."

"Today there is a trend of making biopics and those are also based on books on someone's life. Before that, a couple of films were made on Chetan Bhagat's books. Even I've taken stories from Shakespeare's plays," he added.

Bhardwaj's next movie is "Rangoon", a romantic drama set during World War II. It features Kangana Ranaut, Saif Ali Khan and Shahid Kapoor.

The film is scheduled for release on February 24, 2017.