Film festivals are a journey into cultural history. It is not just an endeavour to educate viewers; it is an exercise to build and revive ethnic connect. At a time when filmmaking in the regional film sector is in troubled waters, language film festivals are one of the many means to ignite a collective realisation to invest in one’s linguistic prowess. Regional cinema is the true ambassador of India’s cultural diversity. It holds a cinematic mirror up to the kaleidoscope that is India, capturing the nation’s artistic diversity and musical traditions in the vibrant colours of its cinema.

Odia language cinema is one of the film industries that emerged during British India coinciding with the year when Odisha became the first state to be carved out on linguistic basis. While the State of Odisha was born on the 1^st of April 1936, the first Odia talkie Sita Bibaha was released on the 28^th of April the same year. While separate statehood was politically uniting people in Odisha, cinema tasked itself to culturally unify a historically dispersed and culturally disconnected nation. Cinema in Odisha in its initial period was growing to establish itself as a symbol of regional cultural identity, especially when the ‘historical risk’ of linguistic and cultural submergence was not entirely a thing of the past.

In the initial years of filmmaking, Odia film industry grew exponentially with regards to numbers, skills, technology, and infrastructure. Like most of the regional language film industries, Odia cinema also benefited from film-friendly policies and film infrastructure growth that was possible through state government’s proactive approaches. However, towards the turn of the millennium, Odia film industry entered a turbulent space with the production of low-quality cinema, thereby creating a distinct disconnect with its viewers, especially rural, who once were responsible for its sustained growth. Moreover, educating viewers on good cinema has been a major challenge in Odisha primarily for two reasons; one, weak and underdeveloped film society movement, and two, lack of film festivals on a regular basis creating opportunities for people to acquaint with good cinema.

It is in this context, the Bhubaneswar Film Festival (BFF) was established with the twin objectives of creating a vibrant and quality cinematic culture by way of exposing the local audience to good and competitive cinema; and, constitute an interactive and learning platform for filmmakers, screenwriters, experts and the public at large to meet and exchange ideas. BFF has a multilingual focus while the first edition had an exclusive Odia cinema focus. While it remains committed to promote Odia cinema, it intends to do so by placing Odia cinema within the larger perspective of national and international cinema.