Bhubaneswar: Odia filmmaker Biswanath Rath recently created history by showcasing Kotpad handloom and launched posters of his feature documentary on ‘Habaspuri’ handloom at Cannes Film Festival. On his very first visit to this world-famous film festival, Biswanath launched the posters of his upcoming Odia-English feature documentary titled ‘Habaspuri Weaving: The Second and Last Death???’ which is about Habaspuri handloom, a unique, age-old, acclaimed, but near-extinct handloom tradition from Kalahandi district of Odisha. This remarkable feature documentary follows the footsteps of his previously acclaimed handloom documentary “Kotpad Weaving: The story of a race against time” and marks a significant milestone in his journey to celebrate and preserve Odisha’s rich artisan heritage. After featuring in the final 12 documentary projects (selected out of 98 International entries) in last year’s edition of NFDC Film Bazaar (Goa), this project is now being supported by NFDC Film Bazaar Documentary CoProduction Market 2023.
While Rath is producing and creatively supervising this feature documentary under his banner ‘BnR Films’, it is being directed by Mayur Mahapatra. The research for this documentary was done by Rath, textile designer Anupriya Mridha, US based textile enthusiast Corinn Flaherty, Mayur Mahapatra, Siddhant Swaroop and Debasish Pratihari. Rath said, “This was my very first experience of Festival De Cannes (also known as Cannes Film Festival). And I had a really great, satisfying and memorable time there watching a few of the selected films in Cannes’s iconic theatres, meeting filmmakers from all corners of the world and promoting our own culture/tradition. Although Sambalpuri handloom has been showcased before, this is the very first time, Kotpad handloom was showcased to the world in this prestigious and famous international film festival.”
ARINDAM GANGULY, OP