BHUBANESWAR: When everything seemed lost for the Odia film industry - more so post Covid pandemic - filmmaker Debi Prasad Lenka’s ‘DAMaN’ has breathed in a new lease of life into Ollywood.Long starved of original content, cinemagoers are back in the theatre halls to watch the film that has been running houseful for the last one week across Odisha and outside. Building the film on the foundation of original content and good story-telling, the young filmmaker has used characters and situations that Odias can connect with.
DAMaN helmed by popular actors Babushan and Dipanwit Dashmohapatra tells the story of a doctor employed in Malkangiri who goes out of his way to bring healthcare to tribals in interior and inaccessible pockets of the district. It has been made with a budget of nearly Rs 1 crore and currently has an IMDB rating of 9.7, the highest any Odia film has got on the platform so far.
There’s more to cheer for the industry as ‘Pratikshya’ by Anupam Patnaik will be screened at the prestigious International Film Festival of India at Goa this month and release on December 2. With Dipanwit as the lead, it is the story of an unemployed graduate who faces the dilemma of securing a government job.
While post-Covid, there has not been any major Odia film releases, the pre-Covid period saw 15 to 20 releases - majority of them being cheap remakes of films from other regional industries - every year. None stayed in the theatres for more than three days. “DAMaN has been housefull from day 1. The response has been overwhelming, something that is beyond our expectation,” said Debi who had initially made a documentary on the DAMaN intervention project of the state government targeting malaria elimination in hard-to-reach pockets of high malaria-burden districts.
What makes the film unique? “There is no heroine in the film because the story did not require one. We tried to keep the story as local and real as possible. Except Babushan and Dipanwit, all the actors in the films belong to Malkangiri and speak in local dialect. This is because we wanted the audience to identify with the land and its people,” explains the director.
Also, DAMaN boasts of smart marketing strategy. It is the first Odia film that has been released simultaneously in places outside Odisha having a good number of Odia population. On November 4, the film was released in 51 theatres - both single screen and multiplexes - in Odisha and 15 theatres across Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune and Hyderabad. All the shows within the state and outside are running to packed houses. This despite nearly 1.7 hours of the film was illegally uploaded to 10 YouTube channels violating copyright norms. A case in this regard has been filed in the cyber crime wing.
Film critics said DAMaN’s success is an indication that the audience now wants to watch realistic cinema and not the run-of-the-mill films. The film is based on stories of two government doctors who worked in inhospitable terrains to deliver healthcare services.
“We can safely say that it is the content, cinematography and music which has drawn people to DAMaN,” said critic Surya Deo. The film’s success may be a watershed moment for Odia cinema. Most importantly, the producer is getting his investment back which was never the case with most of the Odia films, he added.
FILMONOMICS
DAMaN’s Budget - Rs 1 cr
Running in - 51 theatres in Odisha
Also released in - 9 cities outside Odisha
IMDB rating - 9.7 of 10