City-based filmmaker Amartya Bhattacharyya has set an example by a making a film with practically no budget.
The film Khyanikaa - The Lost Idea is now travelling to Mexico and will be screened at the Festival Internacional de Cine con Medios Alternativos (FICMA) there between November 21 and 24.
The festival features films made with unconventional and alternate media. Khyanikaa - The Lost Idea, made with a Canon 6D (DSLR camera), is the only Asian film in the list of five feature films to be screened at the festival. Out of the other four films, two are from Mexico, one from Romania and one from USA.
“The screening will be special as the festival celebrates films made with alternate media or gadgets. The world expects such films to come from America and Europe because they are considered to be technologically superior, but an Odia film has too made it to the festival,” he said.
“There was no use of trolleys or cranes or any additional equipment. I feel that winning this award is an indication that good cinema doesn’t depend on high budget and sophisticated gadgets,” Bhattacharyya said, who is also a software engineer.
The film has made its mark at 16 international film festivals across 8 countries. It was the only Odia film that was screened at the prestigious Indian Panorama section at 48th International Film Festival of India in Goa last year. The film was praised at festivals in Canada, UK, Russia and other countries.
Bhattacharya has made a mark in independent filmmaking with his ventures such as Niloye Jokhon, Boba Mukhosh and Capital I. From colour grading to sound mixing, everything was done by the director on his desktop.
The 89-min film is a fantasy driven tale of two men, a poet and a painter, claiming possession over the same idea, in a rural village portrayed as a wonderland. Idea is personified as a beautiful young lady, free of all bondage. Both the men try to justify their claim over their ideas through their forms of art.
Bhattacharyya believes that in a film the sense of aesthetics is very important. “It is high time that our generation starts experimenting with a free mind,” he said.
