BHUBANESWAR: Highlighting the gradual decline of originality in Odia cinema, film historian Surya Deo said in recent decades Odisha cinema is not being inspired by the State’s literature but is surviving on remakes of movies made in other languages.
Delivering the Ganeswar Mishra Memorial lecture, marking the noted litterateur’s 7th death anniversary organised by Sateertha (a socio-cultural organisation) at Geeta Gobinda Sadan here recently, Deo said Odia literature and films got linked in 1960s primarily because writers like Gopal Chhotray and Bijay Mishra also understood cinema.
“Some of the films which were based on novels or short stories originally written by Odia authors were critically acclaimed and commercially successful. But there were others that failed to impress the box office,” he noted.
“The trend continued more or less in the 1970s but in the 1980s cinematic adaptation of Odia literature slowly decreased as commercial success eluded such an approach,” he added. Prof Jatindra Kumar Nayak underlined the importance that Prof Ganeswar Mishra gave to documentation and said the latter created roadmaps for deeper study and research. On the occasion, Ganeswar Mishra’s ‘Srujana Samagra Part 6’ (collection of translated works) published by Timepass and ‘Ghara Bahuda’ (an anthology of short stories) published by Nabalipi were released.