Odia film gets screened in Ireland for 1st time

Bhubaneswar: For the first time an Odia movie was screened in Dublin by the Odia Society of Ireland. There were around 75 Odias in the audience, along with seven to eight Irish guests, who enjoyed the movie, ‘Pratikshya’, that came with English subtitles at the Scientology Community Centre on a Sunday recently. The society advertised about the screening in the beginning of July and charged a nominal 8 euros for the ticket. There was also a 15-minute introduction before the film started.

According to Debashis Panda, a member of the society and a scientist, the movie was chosen from amongst three because it talked about the struggle of engineers, which resonates with many Non-Resident Odias. “Also, most of us haven’t watched an Odia movie for ages and it was a welcome change,” Panda added.Panda’s views were shared by Sunita Patra, a senior quality engineering manager in an IT firm, who has been abroad for 25 years now. For Sunita, the movie brought back old memories. “It was a great experience and took us back to our roots. We got to see Old Town and Kalpana Chhacka that were part of my growing up years,” Patra said.For others, it was a break from watching regional movies dubbed in Odia. “The current crop of Odia movie directors is aware of the audience’s taste. The dubbed movies no longer appeal to us. It is time to promote Odia culture,” said Shubhasmin Rana, a post-doctoral fellow at Trinity College, Dublin.The arrangements made by the society gave a home feel to the audience. Besides, serving tea, popcorn, samosas and ‘jhal muri’ to the audience, they had also hired eight to 10 child minders to take care of the children so that parents can enjoy the show undisturbed. The teenage kids joined their parents in watching.“Children indulged in many activities like face painting, singing, games and flamingo dance. The child minders are trained professionally to look after the children and they did their job quite well,” Pradyumna Mishra, the cultural secretary of the society, said.