Nila Madhab Panda: India has too few children-centric films

I Am Kalam director Nila Madhab Panda back with another children’s film, Bishwa

National Award winner and Padma Shri awardee director Nila Madhab Panda is now donning the producer’s hat for his next venture, Bishwa with long-time associate and director Anuj Tyagi.

After starting his celluloid journey with the acclaimed I Am Kalam  (2010) that won him 34 international awards, Panda’s subsequent work focused on environmental and children’s issues. He is excited to steer another project that has a child as a central character.

Nila Madhab Panda 

Also Read: Nila Madhab Panda's Halkaa bags top honour at Montreal Film festival

Explaining his recurrent interest in such stories, he said, “India is a country with 28.6 per cent children’s population, and yet we have very few films that are children-centric or talking about their issues”.

Bishwa is based on the life of a blind boy and how he emerges as a hero in a village near the mesmerising Chilika lake. Bishwa was shot entirely in Odisha, right before the lockdown started. Bishwa has featured the beauty of Chilika lake, Bhubaneswar, and Puri, and now the film is all set to open at the Buster Film Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark) and the DYTIATO Children’s Film Festival, Ukraine. He said, “Cinema on children’s issues has always been the most important part of my career as I started with I Am Kalam, then Jalpari and then Halkaa. Bishwa is a tale of a young boy who cannot see whereas the rest of the world can. His father believes he is cursed with a disabled boy. But Bishwa is not ready to accept this thought and gets agitated when people feel he is disabled.”

The film features Vinay Pathak, Yagya Bhasin, Sharib Hashmi, and Usha Jadhav.

Also Read: Nila Madhab Panda's Halkaa heads to Montreal for world premiere

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