Cinema of Odisha

The Odia film industry (Odia: ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସିନେମା), colloquially known as Ollywood, is the Odia language Indian film industry, based in Cuttack, Odisha. The name is a portmanteau of the words Odia and Hollywood.

In 1974, the Government of Odisha declared film making and construction of cinema theaters as an industry in the state, and in 1976 it established the Odisha Film Development Corporation in Cuttack.

Oriya has a history of filmmaking, starting in 1936. The first Oriya production, a talkie, Sita Bibaha, was made by Mohan Sundar Deb Goswami in 1936. Drawn from the Indian epic Ramayana, the story is about the marriage of Sita and Ram. The film plot was made from a drama written by Kamapala Mishra. Prepared with a budget of only Rs 30,000, the film has 14 song sequences. Despite it being the first Oriya film with several drawbacks in every section of its making, the two-hour-long movie generated great enthusiasm among the people. It was released by Laksmi Talkies, Puri. The 12-reeled film had in its cast Makhanlal Banerjee (Ram), who received only Rs 120 for his performance, Aditya Ballav Mohanty (Lakhsman), who got only Rs 35 as conveyance allowance, and Prabati Devi (Sita), who was paid the highest amount of Rs 150. This was a landmark film of the Oriya film Industry.

The pace of Oriya film production in the initial years was very slow. After Sita Bibaha, only two films were produced until 1951. A joint consortium of landlords and businessmen who collected funds after 1948 produced those two movies. The 1951 production Roles to Eight was the first Oriya film with an English name. It was released 15 years after the first Oriya film, Sita Bibaha. It was the fourth Oriya film produced by Ratikant Padhi.

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