Subas Das Director Orissa (Odisha)

Subas Das is a director who has made two oriya art cinemas in his career of 8 years as a producer & director. His first odia film ‘Aw Aakare Aa’ won the National award (Rajat Kamal), for the Best Oriya feature film for 2003. Now he has made another film titled as ‘Ekaa Ekaa’ (English Title – Meandering Reflections) in 2011. He produced these two films under his production banner OM FILMS.

Subas Das Director’s Note

To make a personal cinema, a cinema rooted in the reality of life, is always a difficult challenge; it is especially so in my home state of Odisha. It is not so much the question of concept or theme but the financial aspect! In a place where funds are hard to come by even the most stringent of budgets for a film can seem enormous. Who will risk such financial investment? Here, the not so new dichotomy of cinema as industry and cinema as art can be acute, and a filmmaker in search of his own cinema can be reduced to a helpless bystander.

So after making my first feature “Aw Aakare Aa” (A, B, She) in 2003, which got a National Award, I could only make my second feature “Ekaa Ekaa” (Meandering Reflections) after eight long years. Ekaa Ekaa, literally meaning on one’s own, was initially conceived and planned to be shot in 35mm, which ultimately I couldn’t afford and the film was finally shot in 16mm. But that would be only one of the many setbacks and hurdles, neither new or unfamiliar to any independent filmmaker taking on the task of producing his own film while not knowing where his next month’s livelihood is going to come from. There is neither anything romantic or heroic in this struggle, at least I didn’t experience anything like that. Yes, what matters is the cinema and something within you relentlessly pushing you towards it.

Unlike writing, that most solitary of pursuits, film-making is a collective, collaborative effort. But even in the collective chaos that film- making can be, one also experiences an aloneness. In Ekaa Ekaa, Om finds himself alone. In fact, almost every character in the film, at some point of time or other, confronts the possibility or the fact of being alone. Om accepts this aloneness as the basis of human existence; he is not lonely but alone. Aloneness is inescapable but a true acceptance of it seems to demand, paradoxically, an acceptance of life in its totality. That is Om’s journey. Rather, that is our journey with Om; we only leave him somewhere. The meandering path still beckons our poor filmmaker.

Ekaa Ekaa (Meandering Reflections) Movie Video

Aw Aakare Aa Movie Video (National Award Winner)

Subas Das Director of Oriya Feature Films ‘Aw Aakare Aa’ & ‘Ekaa Ekaa’ from Orissa (Odisha)