Manmohan Mahapatra (b. 1951)

First Oriya art-house director; later made ruralist melodramas. Graduate from Utkal University, then from the FTII (1975). Début feature was a critical success, establishing the landscape of feudal Orissa as the setting for most of his films. His most acclaimed films are Neerab Jhada and Klanta Aparanha. Early films present a bleak and cynically tragic view which, according to the director, emanates from local conditions, although the cinematic idiom deployed is similar to that of the Assamese director Bhabendranath Saikia.

Director