Bhubaneswar Film Festival 2025
Dreams, Desires and the Lens
Bhubaneswar Film Festival
Cinema came to Odisha on the 28th of April 1936; exactly 27 days after Odisha became the first state to be carved out on linguistic basis. Over the last nine decades, though cinema in Odisha has grown exponentially in terms of numbers, commerce and technology; cinema’s scholarly growth and cultural presence within Odia society, especially within its middle class intelligentsia, has been insignificant and has carried trifling value in the absence of a chequered film society movement. Popular access to nationally and internationally acclaimed cinema has been limited restricting the growth of a vibrant film culture in the state.
The Bhubaneswar Film Festival (BFF) as a concept gathered shape to address the twin challenges of limited access to good cinema and Odia cinema’s obscurity in national and international cinematic canvas. What emerged as an obvious objective is to create a platform so that a range of good cinema could be accessed through an assembly of cinema made across geographies. Secondly, the cross-regional and multi-linguistic composition of participants and their exposure to Odia classics and contemporary films is expected to take Odia cinema beyond borders.
Film festivals that were largely missing from the cinematic landscape of Odisha resurfaced as an ethno-cultural, academic and creative exercise with the emergence of BFF that was born by a collective endeavour of filmmakers, technicians, writers and experts from both Odisha and Mumbai. The idea was to develop Bhubaneswar as a film-hub in eastern India by facilitating cinematic exchanges and learning. To strengthen and revitalise the making and market of language cinema, especially Odia cinema, BFF intends to design a scholarly architecture for skill enhancement at several levels, which includes establishing a thinking audience base with special emphasis on bringing the younger audience closer to good cinema, and also to develop a wider understanding within its people of cinema being the true ambassador of a society’s culture, literature and linguistic distinctiveness.
Bhubaneswar Film Festival: Sands and Bricks
Conversations around the formation of Bhubaneswar Film Festival started with the idea of assembling and provoking creative minds and voices to design brick by brick an interactive cinematic platform. The platform is designed to be inclusive supporting interplay of ideas and arguments initiated periodically by thinkers, filmmakers and experts across the country. As mentioned, BFF is all about creating a vibrant film culture and learning through exchanges.
The four pillars of BFF that holds the cinematic architecture together are;
[1] BFF is a brand created within Bhubaneswar Film Circle (BFC), a registered society formed to promote cinema.
Information and knowledge: Enhance access to information and help graduate it to knowledge across demography
Skill and capacities: Establish formal and informal spaces for enhancement of capacity across a range of age groups and professions
Networking and learning: Create spaces for inter-personal and institutional interfaces and exchanges
Opportunities and access: Build an information highway to establish relationships to identify and avail opportunities
It intends to hold organised interactions at several levels: a) interactions between film enthusiasts and cine-lovers, b) exchanges between filmmakers and experts, c) interactions and learning between film buffs, actors and filmmakers, and, d) collective interactions with media and communication outfits. BFF also explores if a designated interactive space could be created to bring in commerce and technology closer by ensuring active participation of investors and technocrats. BFF attributes special emphasis for media and film school students to benefit optimally from the above platform.
Since long, organised interaction between language filmmakers, actors and technicians with Bollywood was almost non-existent in Odisha. BFF plans to be the bridge between language cinema, Odia in particular, and Bollywood so as to establish relationships for mutual gains. This is how the idea of conducting master classes was born to enable actors, filmmakers and screenwriters and aspirants in other sectors of filmmaking grab the available opportunities of learning and networking with Bollywood.
Festivals like BFF are particularly crucial when the contexts, economies and definitions of regional cinema is fast changing with the introduction newer, inexpensive and user-friendly filmmaking technologies and their exhibition infrastructure. It has emerged as a creatively woven dinning space that cooks, serves and consumes cinema.
Bhubaneswar Film Festival: 2024
‘Language film festivals are a unique opportunity to celebrate regional culture and heritage. The initiative of BFF to showcase and promote Odia cinema across the country is praiseworthy and most importantly the manner in which it is being organised needs a generous appreciation’, says ace filmmaker Ketan Mehta, Chief Guest, BFF 2024. The first edition of BFF designed an exclusive Odia film festival primarily to; ensure Odia audience, especially the middle class, returns to its cinema and are retold about its glorious cinematic past depicting its rich culture and literature in films made during the 60s and 70s.
The grand unveiling of BFF 2024 spanning over three days started on the 7th of June 2024 at the iconic Jayadev Bhawan. The festival was inaugurated by a host of eminent film personalities like; Sri.Ketan Mehta, acclaimed director, Chief Guest, Ms. Deepa Sahi, eminent actor, Sri. Apurba Kishor Bir, Director- Cinematographer, Sri. Prashant Nanda, Actor-Director-Producer/Former Member of Parliament, and Sri. Chitta Ranjan Tripathy, Director, National School of Drama. The festival was specially designed to honour the past by screening classics and celebrate the present with contemporary films fostering a sense of pride and appreciation for Odia cinema. What was hailed as the most striking initiative of BFF was the idea of felicitating selected film personalities of yester years for their monumental contributions to Odia cinema. They are; Mohd.Musir for his heart rendering music, Samaresh Pal for his artistry in make-up, Sachi Mohanty for his magical lyrics, Surendra Sahu for techno-magic in camera, and Namrata Das for his moving performance on screen.
Screening of a host of Odia films
The first edition of BFF kicked off on the 7th of June with the screening of the Nirod Mohapatra-directed classic “Maya Miriga” (1984). The curation of films was carefully done to highlight the diversity and depth of Odia cinema made over the years – its skilled storytelling abilities exhibited through addressing a range of social, cultural, and historical themes. The list of films screened during the festival are; Chha Mana Atha Guntha (Six acres and a third, 1986), Bhija Matira Swarga (Wet Haven, 2018), Hello Arsi (2018), Remembering Pramod Pati, Ahalya (The Words of Silence, 1999), Dhauli Express (2007), Tara, Shuka Asuchi (Shuka Returns, 2014), Jianta Bhuta (The Living Ghost, 2008), Moksha (Salvation, 1995), Shunya Swaroopa (Contours of the Void, 1996), Shesa Drusti (The Last Vision, 1997), Sala Budhar Badla (Revenge of the Stupid Old Man, 2020) and Malajanha (Dying Moon, 1965).
‘We need to know our history well. The new generation must understand the pains and hurdles we faced while ensuring growth of our cinema. It is our duty to inform them about our rich cinematic culture and heritage and make them feel proud about it. That is why BFF is such a crucial event’, said Prashant Nanda, the topmost brand in Odia film industry.
Bilingual book on Odia Cinema
Recognising the dearth of writings on Odia cinema, especially in English, BFF unveiled a scholarly book “Odia Cinema @90, Rhythms, Renditions, and Reflections” on this occasion to enhance the availability and outreach of Odia cinema to a global audience with numerous informative and analytical write ups on Odia films, its ethnic connect and music, evolution and history. The book presents a detailed account of Odia cinema’s eventful journey since 1936 focusing on all aspects of film making including reflections on legends, script and dialogue, music, journalism, distribution and so on. Such was the hunger for the book within the audience that within a span of one hour of the release, close to two hundred copies were sold off reflecting the deep desire for something scholarly on Odia cinema. The profile of the buyers ranged from filmmakers, journalists, students, experts to common audience who thought they don’t have enough in their libraries to read about the history and contemporary trends in Odia cinema.
Master classes by Mukesh Chhabra and Amit Rai
One of the key aspirations of BFF is to ensure that skill and talent together meet opportunities. Odisha does have the talent but opportunities are certainly limited. The master classes was designed to build capacities and enable participants to identify and avail opportunities. BFF conducted master classes with the objectives of exposing local talent with high cinematic appetite to opportunities in Bollywood. It helped participants to have clarity around the kind of physical and mental preparation and artistic expertise that specific opportunities would require and how one could assess one’s skills at the national level and how to approach these opportunities.
The two master classes, one on acting and the other on screenwriting, turned out to be the key attraction for the budding actors and filmmakers in Odisha. Mukesh Chhabra, eminent casting director and filmmaker, spent almost a day in interactive sessions with young actors in guiding them in fulfilling their passion of making it to Bollywood. Amit Rai, reputed filmmaker and writer, conducted a highly informative and insightful session on screenplay writing with actors, writers and makers. These two master classes were conducted not only in packed houses but eventually became the two most productive and sought after events in the festival.
Bhubaneswar Film Festival: 2025
The resounding success of BFF became a major topic for discussion in film circles and festivals even outside of the state largely initiated by participants and guests who attended the first edition in June 2024. Though in its infancy, some even went on to say that BFF carries the potential of becoming one of the bigger film festivals especially in eastern India. The unbelievable audience engagement with the festival not only made us greedy but threw the daunting task of enhancing its outreach by making BFF a pan Indian film event.
As we went on to discuss its growth and subsequent editions with filmmakers, experts and critics, we realised that BFF has to be multilingual in its approach while remaining regional in spirit. It should continue to build a strong creative and interactive platform to facilitate cultural exchanges exposing filmmakers and enthusiasts in Odisha to cinema and its makers from across the country and globe. The second edition of BFF, therefore, expands its horizon with the honourable inclusion of award winning language cinema from across the country. It was an uphill task but we ventured.
The second edition of BFF will be held at Jayadev Bhawan, Bhubaneswar from 6th to 9th June 2025. Along with Odia classics, this year the screening repertoire will include award winning films from Indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tiwa, Bengali and Urdu. Shyam Benegal, one of the most creative and courageous torchbearers of socially responsible cinema, is no more. BFF is honoured to hold his obituary by screening one of his best creations.
The idea of extending the festival to four days was a repeated feedback that we received when we concluded the first edition and thereafter. We had more reasons to comply with the request as BFF planned to celebrate the birth centenary of two of the most brilliant filmmakers of India – Gurudutt and Ritwik Ghatak. This June, BFF will not only screen their films but enable learning the intricacies and highpoints of their storytelling methods and filmmaking styles from experts and critics by holding their Memorial Lectures.
The first edition experienced overwhelming success in generating popular interest for Master classes organised by experts from Bollywood. This year BFF intends to continue its engagement with budding actors and screenwriters by arranging to conduct Master classes by Bollywood actors and screenplay experts. In this edition, BFF will make a sincere effort to create a congregation of film writers and critics from across the country so that young and budding film journalists, critics and media school students benefit. True to its spirit, BFF will continue to remain informative and interactive to strengthen the desired learning platform.
BFF this year, as part of its avowed objectives, will hold both formal and informal interactive sessions on cinema creatively engaging the media in thematic conversations so as to enable exchange of ideas and thoughts. BFF will also release an informative and analytical resource booklet informing about the films, details of master classes and about the lives and works of other film personalities like Gurudutt, Ritwik Ghatak, Raj Kapoor, Salil Choudhury, Mohd. Rafi, Bhupen Hazarika whose birth centenaries are also being celebrated.
[1] BFF is a brand created within Bhubaneswar Film Circle (BFC), a registered society formed to promote cinema.