Khyanikaa: The Lost Idea

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Khyanikaa: The Lost Idea
Directed by Amartya Bhattacharyya
Written byAmartya Bhattacharyya
Produced bySwastik Choudhury
StarringAmrita Chowdhury
Susant Misra
Swastik Choudhury
Hrushikesh Bhoi
Choudhury Bikash Das
Dipanwit Dashmohapatra
Anu Choudhury
Bhaswati Basu
CinematographyAmartya Bhattacharyya
Edited byAmartya Bhattacharyya
Music byKisaloy Roy
Running time
89 minutes
CountryIndia
Language Odia

Khyanikaa: The Lost Idea [1] is a 2017 Odia language independent feature film written and directed by Amartya Bhattacharyya. The film won the state award for Best Editing at the 29th Odisha State Film Awards [2] which was awarded to the filmmaker Amartya Bhattacharyya, who was also the editor of the film.

Contents

The treatment of the film is more like a satire with moments of humorous illustrations of serious reality and often merging into spaces of magic realism and surrealism. The film was the only Odia language film at the Indian Panorama at 48th International Film Festival of India 2017. The film also gathered a lot of critical acclamation at the international film festival circuit. The film is produced by Swastik Choudhury under the banner of Swastik Arthouse.

The film was premiered at Hidden Gems Film Festival in Canada followed by a number of other festivals including the Dhaka International Film Festival and Ethiopian International Film Festival. The film won the Honorable Jury Mention [3] award at 5th Noida International Film Festival 2018.

Film crew at IFFI (2017) The Director, Amartya Bhattacharya, Producer, Swastic Chowdhary, Actor, Sushant Misra, Actor Dipanwit Dashmohapatra and the Executive Producer & Actor, Shyamalal Dutta, at the Presentation of "Khyanikaa" (NF).jpg
Film crew at IFFI (2017)

Cast

Critical reception

The film earned a lot of critical acclaim from the film festival circuit. [4] The Navhind Times listed Khyanikaa in its list of must-watch films of IFFI for 2017.

Film critic Taryll Baker, in his review published on UK Film Review, writes - "Amartya Bhattacharyya’s Khyanikaa: The Lost Idea throws us into a wonderland filled with impeccable colour and strange but convivial characters." [5]

Soumika M Das, film critic of the New Indian Express, writes - "Defying the conventional formula of filmmaking, director Amartya Bhattacharya explores the problems of contemporary lives with satirical undertones in his Odia film, Khayanikaa The Lost Idea. His portrayal of the plot resembles the fashion in which a modern author presents his ideas in a stream of consciousness novel." [6]

Controversy

In June 2020, Khyanikaa released on Amazon Prime Videos, but was removed from the Indian territory after a couple of days. [7] An official spokesperson was quoted saying "The Odia film Khyanikaa: The Lost Idea was inadvertently made available by the distributors of the film, through the self-publishing program Prime Video Direct. We regret this error. When Prime Video launched in India over 3 years ago, we were offering content across 5 Indian languages namely Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Marathi. Since then, we have carefully and consistently curated our local library, which currently features content in 9 Indian languages including Hindi, Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali and Malayalam." [8]

It led to a strong protest on social media. [9] While film lovers used the hash tag #BringKhyanikaaBack as a mark of protest, Koraput MP Saptagiri Ulaka met the Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Jadevekar to raise the concern. [10]

Film festival screenings

YearFestivalPlace
201748th International Film Festival of India (Indian Panorama) [11] Goa, India
16th Dhaka International Film Festival [12] Dhaka, Bangladesh
Cardiff International Film Festival [13] Cardiff, United Kingdom
Hidden Gems Film Festival [13] Calgary, Canada
15th Chennai International Film Festival [14] Karnataka, India
Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival [15] Ontario, Canada
20th Annual Native American Film Festival of Southeast [16] USA
Echo Film Festival (BRICS) [17] Moscow, Russia
12th Ethiopian International Film Festival [18] Ehiopia
20185th Noida International Film FestivalNoida, India
Nitte International Film FestivalMangaluru, India
Zsigmond Vilmos International Film Festival [19] Szeged, Hungary
FFSI National Film FestivalKolkata, India
Pondicherry International Film FestivalPondicherry, India
Bioscope Global Film FestivalAmritsar, India
Dasara Film FestivalMysuru, India
Festival Internacional de Cine con Medios AlternativosMexico City, Mexico
Nepal Cultural International Film FestivalKathmandu, Nepal
Pearl International Film FestivalKampala, Uganda
Brahmaputra Valley Film FestivalGuwahati, India
La Paz International Film FestivalLa Paz, Bolivia
9th Asian Film FestivalPune, India
13th International Film Festival of ThrissurThrissur, India
International Innovation Film Festival 2018Bern, Switzerland
2019Covellite International Film Festival [20] Butte, USA
Phenicien International Film Festival [21] Lyon, France
2020Panchajanyam International Film FestivalKerala, India

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References

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