By Subrat Kumar Nayak
All you movie freaks, this one is for you! ‘Dedicated to all Bhainas and Bhaunis,’ this was the invitation given by Odisha-based filmmaker Amartya Bhattacharya for the first screening of his indie film Khyanika- at Inox, Bhubaneswar on June 10. After travelling 12 film festivals in 8 countries across the world, it is finally coming home.
Produced by Swastik Choudhury under the banner of Swastik Arthouse, it has been screened at Zsigmond Vilmos International Film Festival in Szeged at Hungary and in some prestigious film festivals in India too. It’s the second feature film of Amartya after ‘Capital I’.
‘Khyanika’ featured Amrita Chowdhury, Susant Misra, Choudhury Bikash Das, Hrushikesh Bhoi and Swastik Choudhury in the lead roles. Eminent actress Anu Choudhury has also made a guest appearance in the movie.
Prior to filmmaking, Amartya has shown his expertise in his poem collections ‘Ekush (21)’ and ‘Shatarupa’ which describes love, death and dark side of human life. That poetic touch has been reflected in ‘Khyanika’ which is a fantasy tale of two men. Their imagination have been personified into different forms, like Idea is shown as a beautiful lady and fate is depicted by big fat man. The film was shot with a DSLR camera by Amartya Bhattacharya the director, writer and editor of the movie.
It is said to be the first independent feature film of Odisha. Being a self-trained cinematographer and having no hi-end equipment used in film industry, he has experimented a lot during shoot.
In one shot he has used a rope. Explaining the technique, he says, “This technique was to ensure that the subject stays in continuous focus while shooting a tracking shot with wide aperture (shallow depth of field).”
Kisaloy Roy has contributed the music of this film which is of 89-minute duration. This movie is highly appreciated among the new age film makers of India in the social media.
But a state like Odisha which is struggling for a good movie for last some years, the young filmmaker has urged his followers and Odia film lovers to come once to the theatre. “The tickets for the movie are available with 1018mb.com, the distribution partner of the movie. 1018mb brings the alternate films to screen which are usually not made in commercial purpose. If the tickets will be booked within some days, it will impress the distributor that there is a market for artistic films and good films in Odisha. The year 2018 is lucky for us as Odia film Hello Arsi has won 3 national awards. We can do more together – we can produce more national and international level films. We need your support.”