The first-ever Odia film to release on a major streaming platform, ‘Khyanikaa: The Lost Idea’ was taken down on June 8th only two days after its premiere on Amazon Prime. A critically acclaimed film that was selected for the Indian Panorama at the 48th International Film Festival of India in 2017 and also represented India at various international festivals being removed is surprising and a decision out of left field for the platform.
When the film was released it was a cause for celebration for all independent filmmakers as it paved the path for lesser known movies to be accessible to mainstream viewers and shed light on regional stories in their native language.
But the film was taken down without any official communication to the director and after several days of trying to resolve the problem they were made aware that the reason was because Amazon Prime only supported nine languages and Odia was not one of them. Furthermore when viewers tried to contact Customer Care of Amazon they were given other reasons such as the producer pulled it down, expiration of the license, and bizarrely that the film was never released in India.
Such statements from Amazon Prime for such a distinguished film not only is discriminatory towards the movie makers but also towards the Odia cinema at large. A film that was instrumental in bringing the Odia culture and language to the forefront being taken down in such a manner is hurtful and sets a wrong precedent for regional films in the future.
The film was the second outing by director Amartya Bhattacharyya about problems in modern lives with undertones of satire and fantasy. Needless to say we hope streaming services update their policies and start to include such important indie movies on their roster so that they can finally get the recognition they deserve.
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