‘Adieu Godard’: French Filmmaker & Inspiration Behind Odia Film Passes Away

Bhubaneswar: ‘Adieu Godard’.

French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, around whom the story of Odia film ‘Adieu Godard’ is based and released in theatres in India this month, has died aged 91.

Godard, who was born in Paris in 1930 and grew up and went to school in Nyon on the banks of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, spearheaded the revolutionary French New Wave of cinema in the late 1950s and 60s, influencing directors from Quentin Tarantino to Martin Scorsese.

And closer home, National Award-winning filmmaker Amartya Bhattacharyya, the director of ‘Adieu Godard’.

Well, did Godard get an opportunity to watch the Odia film?

Here’s the storyline of the Odia film in short: It revolves around an old man, Ananda, who is a pornography addict. He secretly watches pornography with friends in a conservative Indian village. One day, he brings home a DVD and, instead of pornography, it turns out to be one of the classics of Godard.

Ananda gets attracted to Godard’s films. With time, he floats the idea of hosting a film festival in their village where Godard’s films will be screened. The idea seems quite absurd to many. But overcoming several obstacles, they finally manage to organise the festival.

‘Adieu Godard’ has Choudhury Bikas Das in the lead, Dipanwit Dashmohapatra, Sudharsri Madhusmita, Swastik Choudhury, Choudhury Jayaprakash Das, Shankar Basu Mallick and Abhishek Giri.

At the 27th Kolkata International Film Festival, the film won the Best Film in the Indian Languages competition category. Besides, it also visited the 43rd Moscow International Film Festival, 26th Split Film Festival 2021, Croatia and 26th International Film Festival of Kerala 2022, among others.