What Ails Odia Cinema?

Odia cinema struggles for recognition as a serious art form within its own semi-feudal society and English-speaking middle class

Sanjoy Patnaik

The reasons for the continuous and mysterious affliction of Odia cinema has many theories to offer that swings between government apathy to lack of public viewing infrastructure to thoughtless filmmaking. While most of the above are Odia cinema’s perennial sources of pain, for the state governments, with the honourable exception of J B Patnaik’s government, cinema has seldom been a cultural priority in Odisha.

The largely semi-feudal Odia society and its English speaking middle class considers Odia cinema a frivolous and non-serious art form. In the context of art, especially cinema, semi-feudalism can be further illustrated as artists’ subservience to its almighty mandarin. The larger government engagement needs to be understood from this bureaucratic indifference streaming invariably from lack of respect for cinema and anything concerning Odia cinema.

Moreover, historically cinema has continued to be a low value scholarly product for academic exercise in Odisha unlike in states of Bengal, Kerala or Maharastra where cinema has elevated itself to being a respectable socio-cultural product with strong academic and middle class support. Since cinema is as good as its society that records contemporary society, Odia cinema can at best be a blurred reflection of its society.

There can be no single answer to the question ‘What ails Odia cinema?’ Respondents over the years have approached and perceived the challenges differently. While in the last two decades we have slid down from making good cinema to bad cinema, our celluloid anonymity remains consistently poor outside of the state. While the number of films that are hitting the native market is increasing every year, they maintain a strange consistency in being trash or at best average.

The danger, however, is not being average; the risk, on the contrary, lies in the culture of locating brilliance in trash. The only time an Odia cinema goes out of the state is when it either competes with its brethren in the best regional film category in the national film awards or gets an entry in some unheard and obscure film festival abroad. Therefore, what appears to be a dreaded lurgy of contemporary Odia cinema is its inability to attract national critical attention due to serious deficit of quality human resource currently available in the filmmaking business.

The Ongoing Film Policy Fiasco
The previous government announced a film policy in 2019 to address some of the film production related challenges and thereby promote cinema in Odisha. But for reasons best known to them the policy became a non-starter; a hogwash as the state government neither made any financial provisions nor designed a plan to implement it. Suddenly in late January 2025, the state government announced its intention to engage with the Odia film sector by bringing in a new film policy with striking resemblance with its predecessor.

What appears as a strange coincidence is; while the previous government announced the first film policy in March 2019 during their ‘Make in Odisha’ initiative, a similar announcement on film promotion has been done by the new government in ‘Utkarsh Odisha’, their version of industrial promotion. The film fraternity was euphoric and hopeful then, so are they now in 2025. A film industry without a film policy may not sink. But a functional film policy can only reveal a state government’s commitment for cinema as a respectable profession and a paramount source of ethno-cultural identity.

Public Exhibition: Myth vs Reality
Since long it is being believed that weak public exhibition facilities both with regard to infrastructure and policy enforcement ails Odia cinema. For which it is proposed that building of cinema halls at the block level can increase viewership of Odia cinema. Let’s deep dive and understand the dynamics and the intricacies of public exhibition both in rural and urban Odisha.

Here I would like to place for discussion two myths doing the rounds on public exhibition. While the first myth goes like, the super cyclone of 1999 destroyed cinema halls in coastal Odisha significantly reducing viewership of Odia cinema; and the second being, establishment of cinema halls at the block level will increase viewership of Odia cinema. The first myth intends to support an argument that since the super cyclone razed cinema halls filmmaking in Odisha significantly suffered.

One set of data suggests that during the late 80s there were about 256 halls in Odisha and post 1999 it went down to 150 and subsequently to 70. But available data about the extent of devastation of concrete buildings due to super cyclone in coastal Odisha suggests that there are only two districts; Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara that suffered maximum physical damage.

Does that mean in these two districts or at best with the addition of another coastal district like Bhadrak, the total number of cinema halls that got devastated would touch one hundred? Moreover, this devastation happened only in coastal Odisha not in the entire state. In the absence of reliable data one is tempted to infer that the decrease in the number of cinema halls for whatever reason is pre-1999 as it most likely coincided with the infamous ‘remake’ era of Odia cinema.

What is even more confusing is if so many cinema halls were devastated and closed down, how come the number of Odia films released per year post 1999 is on the rise. Therefore, it is less likely that the decreasing number of film halls for whatever reason would have discouraged film making in Odisha. If it did, it is much less than what is being projected.

Post super cyclone, the then state government disallowed all demands for financial assistance for renovation of the devastated film halls. Now the state government believes that more and more people will watch Odia cinema if cinema halls are constructed at the block level. This looks like an argumentative fallacy as the trend has been to switch over to smaller devises for film viewing and irrespective of the language of the film, single screen halls and multiplexes in cities are largely empty.

Besides, what appears as an unbelievable hypothesis is construction of halls in rural Odisha would increase viewership of Odia cinema something that the state government couldn’t ensure in the urban centres. Though it’s too early to jump into any conclusion but if the government takes such a decision then who will build these block level film halls? The private sector, certainly not the state machinery.

Is this an invitation to PVR Inox to penetrate into the rural market in Odisha? Will PVR Inox take the offer when they are closing down 70% of their non-performing screens in India? It’s not a bad idea though to consider engaging the private sector. But will that ensure viewers in rural Odisha haveincreased access to Odia cinema when the state governments have not been able to enforce the mandatory screening provisions for Odia cinema in urban centres? This largest multiplex chain or any private sector outfit for that matter are profit driven ventures where if a film fails to provide the right returns would be mercilessly dumped. The much publicized Odia Asmita (identity) may not work.

Through creating these safe havens in the form of block level cinema halls are we trying to introduce some kind of an MSP (minimum support price) provision for our cinema? It’s like assuring the Odia filmmakers if nobody watches the trash you make our block level halls will run them. Odias are well known for ‘celebrating mediocrity’, the above may institutionalize it.

Therefore for Odia cinema to succeed in the long run, mandatory screening provisions should be enforced without any additional market safety net. The dire need now is a well-intentioned policy with financial subsidy provisions for filmmaking whose availability can be made conditional to high standard quality products. Therefore, for the time being it may not be a bad idea to go slow with the construction of block level cinema halls.

(Sanjoy Patnaik is a Writer and Filmmaker, studied at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Film Appreciation from FTII, Pune. Views expressed are personal.)