Celebrating stories rooted in regional pride and cinematic brilliance, the Bhubaneswar Film Festival stands as a cultural beacon for Odisha
Isha Isita
A society, a collective, a culture is bound physically by its political, economic and legal structures but is kept alive, vitalised and united in the spirit by its collective cultural manifestations and their celebration. A culture can only be said to be alive if its cultural manifestations are celebrated, critiqued and publicised to the world and it can be vitalised only when it engages in such manifestations as a united collective fostering a healthy, dynamic society which has spaces worthy and capable of igniting necessitated discourse.The true inheritance of a collective in any walk of life is its ability to foster the cultural sense of beauty and harmony through its culture in its succeeding generations for it’s essential to the collective identity formation and sustenance of the community as a whole. For it facilitates the space for cultural and social dialogue within the community allowing it to truly progress.
In today’s time when the motion media has become the greatest cultural transmitter of ideas, cinema has become an integrally integrated tool in the hands of the collective to propagate its value systems and lived realities along with engaging with diverse value systems and philosophies to create an ecosystem which is progressive, enterprising and dynamic in its working and ideology. As it speaks to the audience without any mediating intermediary, it creates much space for reflection and dialogue, leading it to be an integral and determining formatter of cultural and social identity at the times of globalization and internet boom.
To effectively use the medium as a discursive space of identity creation, it is essential that the intelligentsia of the community realizes its potential and employ the appropriate forces to harness it as a dialogic tool effectively. Film festivals which are sensitive to regional needs of the cultural area they operate in become imperative to allow the cinematic landscape of a state to bloom into its composite capability and take on its responsibility of being the cultural ambassador and social educator of its community.
It’s a matter of unfortunate sadness that the Odia community for a long time has slumbered to the indispensable necessity of having locally senisitive film festivals which will not only give it’s cinema a platform for the world to view them but will also give the state the lenses to view the world, an exposure which can be further instrumentalized in the growth of its cultural industries.In this moment of need and crisis, the Bhubaneswar Film Circle has come up with the laudable initiative to organize a film festival which remains true and committed to the local industry and local community’s future growth.
Through its annual event Bhubaneswar Film Festival (BFF) held first in June 2024, Bhubaneswar Film Circle serves a three-fold purpose of providing a distinctive platform for original Odia cinema which otherwise get lost in the myriads of cultural exhibitions, of bringing global standards and exemplars of the world cinema to the Odia audience to contribute to the integral progress of its cinematic industry and provide streamlined academic and intellectual support to it through its annual publication.
Last year the festival celebrated original and distinctive works made by Odia film makers- classic, contemporary and parallel- preventing their gradual disappearance from collective memory and honour, along with setting the foundation stone for well-versed research in the Odia film industry through the publication of its research journalOdia Cinema@90, a precedent which filled many gaps in the languishing body of Odia cinematic industry. Along with that it also tried to bring global standards of filmmaking to the creators, artists and audience through its masterclasses, paving the way for further development of the industry.
Inspired by the warm response it got from home and outside, Bhubaneswar Film Festival has revitalized in 2025 with a wider aim and nobler reach by honouring not just quality Odia cinema but also bringing to the audience the best produce that regional cinema across the subcontinent provides, thus addressing the ‘twin challenge’ of exposing Odisha to global exemplars of film making and making the presence of Odia cinema be felt on a national stage. Held from 6th to 9th June, 2025 it offers a colossal bouquet of cinema transcending genre, linguistic and cultural barriers.From Ritwik Ghatak’s heart-wrenching Meghe Daka Tara (1960) to the compassionate gaze of Shwaas (2004), from the poignant tension of Hamid (2019) to critical lens of Ghantashraddha(1977), BFF has prepared a wonderful compilation of regional cinema that creates a unique opportunity for inter-cultural dialogue and learning.Though grown wider in its scope it has not forgot it’s responsibility to it’s locale by screening lost Odia classics like Matira Manisha (1966), Kaa(1966) and Jajabara(1975). It also pays tribute to the past masters whose work inspires the film collective like Guru Dutt, Ritwik Ghatak and Shyam Bengal by screening their best works and organizing discourses surrounding it.
Remaining true to its commitment in fostering a progressive film industry in Odisha which is respected in global forums, it continues its sterling initiative of bringing International standards of filmmaking to Odia creators, artists and aspirants through meticulous masterclasses held by industry experts on Screenplay and acting to be organized on 7th and 8th June, 2025.
Along with providing a space for inter-cultural dialogue during the tenure of the festival, it translates the discursive space to a tangible offshoot by publishing another well-researched compilation of filmology articles written by diverse members of the national intelligentsia, thus further nurturing the research endeavors on Odia cinema which is scanty and scattered.
With dedicated compilation of exemplar cinema from across the subcontinent, effective masterclasses which bring global standard to Odia doors and sincere discursive endeavors like the publication of film compendiums, BFF has set out to fill a much – needed and necessitated gap in the depleted structure of the Odisha film culture, making a commendable and unprecedented step forward to the future. One hopes that the resounding success of its 2024 edition is repeated in the response to its 2025 chapter and its reach and goals expand further, making it a true ambassador and educator of Odia film culture.
(The author, a student of English Literature at Christ University, Bengaluru is currently an intern with Bhubaneswar Film Circle. Views are personal.)
