“Charitra” Explores New Way Of Storytelling

“Charitra” Explores New Way Of Storytelling

With the new era of filmmaking, emerging talents are trying their best to make a difference. We are witnessing Odia films getting national and international recognition more than ever before. But what about Ollywood? Most of the Ollywood films in the last few years can be categorised into either love stories or drama. But bringing about a change to this stagnant state of affairs, the director duo Peenakee Singh and Sisir Kumar Sahu have come up with their new film ‘Charitra’.

The film stars well-known actors from O-town like Partha Sarathi Ray, Ananya Mishra, Gargi Mohanty, Hara Rath and Dipanwit Das Mohapatra. Due to the Covid situation the film is all set to have its World TV premiere this Sunday (25^th April).

Assuring of new things in Odia cinema, Partha told My City Links, “This film has a complete new pattern of storytelling by two talented directors and new techniques of cinematography and framing are used which speak and create a poetic flow. The casting is done professionally like you see in contemporary Hindi films and web-series of the present time and the most important aspect is the sound design which is as good as any contemporary Hindi film.”

“This women-centric film has elements like crime, drama, suspense and love. The kind of storytelling as far as I know is not done in any other industry till date,” said Sisir.

“We all know the current scenario of the Odia industry. For the last 84 years we have been stuck in the same genres like love and drama. So we thought of making such a film which can touch the audience of all age groups,” added Peenakee.

The story is about an IAS officer Abhiskek Pattanaik and his wife Madhusmita Pattanaik who are newly married and posted in Koraput .Their married life was going smoothly but day by day Abhishek becomes busy in his work life and Madhu is left all alone in the house. One day Madhu finds a diary and while reading it she comes to know about ‘Charitra’, which is the story of a lady named Kalpana. The film tries to find out who is Kalpana and what was her story.

The shoot was done during winter and the temperature was almost 5 to 6° C near HAL in Koraput. Peenakee said, “The place is a highly restricted area for photography. That was a big challenge. We went to the administration office and we spoke with the authorities about the film and our intention to explore and expose the beauty of the place in our film.  And we were surprised that not only they agreed but they helped us and provided everything we needed including the quarters, guest house, electricity etc.”

“They all are very talented and brilliant actors. They are very co-operative and dedicated towards their work and above all they have given their screen test and look test for their character. We can assure that the casting was quite authentic in this film.” the director duo said about the cast.