Popular Odia movie Daman’s director, Devi Prasad Lenka has revealed that he and his team had to struggle hard during the release of the movie.
“We found it pretty difficult to get theatres for the release of the movie. We even pleaded the cinema hall owners for the release of the movie, but it was not easy to get the opportunity,” said Lenka on the sidelines of Tarang Cine Productions’ Tarang Cine Flix conclave, which got off to a colourful start in Bhubaneswar on Saturday. The two-day conclave is being organised to celebrate the journey of regional cinema.
“We wanted the audience to watch the movie on big screen rather than OTT platform and satellite. However, we had to go through a lot of struggle for it. We had to approach the Producers’ Association and request the forum to solve our problem,” said Lenka.
“Moreover, we don’t have a friendly platform in Odisha where we can call all the distributors and exhibitors and show them a cinema to take a decision about the release of an Odia cinema. It is the main problem while releasing a movie,” said Lenka adding that Hindi and other language movies are given priority over Odia movies.
“We had great confidence on ‘Daman’ and we even paid charges to exhibitors for running the movie in cinema halls. Generally, Producers target popular festivals like Raja, Durga Puja and New Year time to release their movies. But we released our movie on November 4 and there were not many releases around,” said Lenka.
As per the successful director, they run the movie initially in 10-12 screens. However, people liked Daman and a time came when the movie was running 32 shows in a day in Bhubaneswar.
“The Odia movie run for 80 days at a stretch which was a great achievement for us,” said Lenka.
The promising director thanked Tarang Cine Production for the Tarang Cine Flix conclave. As per Lenka, the conclave will help Odia moviemakers build up an idea about the making of a movie which has pan-India potential.
“After the success of Daman, I am getting many offers. But the responsibility has grown a lot. There are many stories around us. We should feel the story and characters and make the movie honestly. Then only the movie will touch our audience,” Lenka signed off.