Bhubaneswar Film Festival rests on four pillars – information & knowledge, skill & capacities, networking & learning, opportunities & access
Isha Isita
When the harassed poet in Guru Dutt’s Pyasa (1957) delivers his farewell declamation of the cruel despotic world which had exploited him in life and death alike in the exquisite poetry of Sahir Ludhianvi’s“Yeh mehlon, yeh takhton, yeh taajon ki duniya ……Yeh duniya agar mil bhijaaye to kyahai”, light, music and poetry fused into a composite perfection giving to the new world it’s scathing and unforgettable denouncement of the old age of rigid stifling convention and the song, the scene became the definition of the frustration of the creative youth with the bounded, feudalistic India that existed.
In a few moments a new idea was born which shook the nation – this is the power of cinema which the founding member of Bhubaneswar Film Festival Mr. Sanjoy Patnaik had aptly described as “moving literature.” For it is the transitioned medium through which the intricacies of human life and beyond is explored in a new composite and integral tongue.
And like its predecessors this new language of ideas needs an ecosystem strong and composite enough to not let it slip into both oblivion of repetition and the inertia of ignorance. For a film industry worthy to be the cultural communicator of its collective, it’s essential that it has enthusiastic patrons,passionate creators, a keen audience and an avid intellectualised circle of film critics and researchers. Systematically organized regional film festivals provide all these indispensable elements to a film industry and hence are indispensable for a steady progress of a film industry.In the words of Diego Luna, “being at a film festival reminds [us]of the power of film. The power that we have in our hands. Telling specific stories about personal matters can start the debate that is needed today, and that connect you with realities that you had no idea were connected.”
A film festival is at once a site of learning and a site of creating, along with being a bridge between creators,audience and the industry in its composite. It allows creators to take their original work however daring to the industry and beyond, giving independent ideas and distinct voices a platform to capture the attention of the world and possibly, to live it altered. And perhaps the most important contribution of film festivals is not to the creators for which it becomes a respectful communication medium, neither for the film enthusiastic audience to which it’s a carnival to celebrate poetry in motion, neither to the industry to which it becomes a consolidated face of progress, but essentially to the collective it becomes a part of.
For it provides the collective a platform to disseminate its way of life and cultural philosophies to a wider audience, a medium to showcase to the world its finest creators and creations, and thus earn its film industry and in amalgamation itself a respectful position in the topography of global cultural industries.
In addition, it also provides the collective a chance to grow and progress, exposing its artists to globally revered works and techniques and developing its audiences’ aesthetic and critical thinking, thus leading to further upliftment of its film industry, culture and way of life.
Realizing the indispensable role that a regionally sensitive film festival when executed with diligence plays in the composite development of a regional film industry, which are facing an ever-increasing threat of extinction due to the infiltration of mainstream consumeristic media of the Hindi industry, the Bhubaneswar Film Circle took on the daunting task of organizing an annual film festival which honors and educates the Odia Film Industry.
Through screening of fine cinema Odia and global, organizing master classes to bridge the knowledge gap between Odia artists and global standards of film creation and publication of erudite research works on the industry, the Bhubaneswar Film Festival fills a very gaping missing link of the edifice of Odia Film industry. It brings to the industry what it long had groped for in the dark the light to and from the world, an opportunity to grow and develop as a worthy cultural production of the Odia culture.
Bhubaneswar Film Festival according to its organizers rests on four pillars or objectives namely information and knowledge, skill and capacities, networking and learning, and opportunities and access. It seeks to not only be a cultural communicator of the Odia film industry and the culture it represents through publications and dialogues on it but also empower the industry – its audience and aspirants alike- with globally revered and practiced ideas and techniques.
It is also envisioning itself as a centre of a continual dialogue between the Odia industry and the outside world, facilitating mutual learning and exchange of ideas, along with providing the distinct talents of the region a much-needed platform to showcase their work. In BFF, the film industry will find a synthesis of cultural exchange, aesthetic-critical learning and a carnival of cinematic celebration.
The Odia film industry has languished for decades in the darkness of nescient invisibility, greatly impeding its progress and upliftment for the want of a consolidated regionally sensitive film festival. One hopes that Bhubaneswar Film Festival will rise to the worthy aim it has set for itself and become the beacon the state is in desperate need of.
(The author, a student of English Literature at Christ University, Bengaluru is an intern with Bhubaneswar Film Circle. Views are personal.)
