★★★★☆
“quite a visual treat.“
—Benjamin Franz, Film Threat
“Refulgent colours of life.”
—Anindita Sahoo, IIT Madras, India
“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).
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
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