★★★★☆
quite a visual treat.

Benjamin Franz, Film Threat

Refulgent colours of life.”

Anindita Sahoo, IIT Madras, India

Nani-Ma-logo-white

Loving homage to family and culture.

Rebecca Cherry, Film Carnage

“Impending loss captured with tenderness and compassion.

ATRI PRASAD ROUT, Orissa Post

★★★★☆

Nani Ma brilliantly showcases the dialect through Masamoni Panigrahi’s sing-song poems, stories, bridal songs, and death songs. It’s quite the cultural showcase.

Benjamin Franz, Film Threat

Though issues of language and culture are politically polarising, Panigrahi’s choice of human subject, his grandmother, seems more personal than political.

Atri Prasad Rout, Orissa Post

Nanima’s narrative creatively portrayed.

Dr. Bhagban Prakash, Author

First-ever documentary film in the spoken tongue of northern region of Odisha—Baleswari.

Sambad, Odia Newspaper

About the film

 

The manmade 1866 famine of Orissa in eastern India, stemming from British colonial rule and poor administration, killed a million people and gravely inspired the oral literature of the survivors. Two generations later, Musamoni Panigrahi never received schooling, and her early marriage brought her early widowhood. Women of her generation who bore the burden of systemic patriarchy never saw their stories being recorded and shared as is. Only in 2014, three years before her death, her own renditions of folklore and folk songs were recorded, becoming the first documentary in the Baleswari dialect of the Odia language. Soaked in her personal suffering and worldview, her narratives constantly navigate the great divide of gender, caste and class in coastal Odisha (formerly Orissa).

Nani Ma was selected for the Mozilla Festival 2023 (International Premiere), Lift-Off Filmmaker Sessions (UK), and was premiered at Bakul Foundation, Bhubaneswar (India).

Reviews & Publications

 

DATASHEET

TITLE
Nani Ma

TITLE IN ODIA
ନାନୀ ମା

LOGLINE
A 95-year-old woman who must share her songs and stories before they are lost forever or she is gone.

SCREENWRITER, CAMERAPERSON, RECORDIST, DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER
Subhashish Panigrahi

CAST
Musamoni Panigrahi (self)
Damayanti Beshra (self)
Panchanan Mohanty (self)
Laxmikanta Tripathy (self)

COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION/ORIGIN
India

FILMING LOCATION(S)
Balasore, Odisha, India

DATE(S)
Year of Production 2022
RELEASE DATE(S)
3 October 2022 (India)

DURATION
35 minutes (appx.)

GENRE
Documentary

DISTRIBUTION COMPANY
O Foundation

FILM WEBSITE
https://theofdn.org/film/nanima

PERMANENT ARCHIVE
https://archive.org/details/nani-ma

DVD Archived at the Library of Congress
https://lccn.loc.gov/2023336704

Reviews & Publications

REVIEWS

FOR SCREENINGS, REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS & OTHER QUERIES, CONTACT:

Subhashish Panigrahi

SCREENINGS

  • May 2023: Bakul Foundation, Bhubaneswar (India)
  • March 2023: Mozilla Festival