Eminent Odia filmmaker and cinematographer Raj Gopal Mishra, who was part of a good number of Assamese films, has passed away at the age of 71.
Mishra suffered a cardiac arrest and was rushed to a private hospital in Bhubaneswar but was declared dead on November 2, family sources said.
An alumnus of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Pune, Raj Gopal Mishra was popularly known as Raju Mishra. He was known for introducing the element of commercial cinematography in Odia cinema.
His graduating film from FTII, ‘Sudama Into The Thirsty Night’, fetched him the Best Student Film award at the Indian Panorama and he went on to assist Sharad Navle in the 1979 Marathi film ‘Sarvasakshi’ which was directed by Ramdas Phutane and had Smita Patil as the lead actress.
In Assam, he has been associated with various projects as a cinematographer since the early 1990s.
Some of the films in which Mishra was associated were ‘Kaal Sandhya’ written and directed by Bhabendra Nath Saikia, ‘Bukur Majot Jole’ by Ashok Kumar Bishaya, ‘Matsyagandha’ by Sanjeev Hazarika, ‘Aai Kot Nai’, ‘Aakashitorar Kothare’, ‘Laaj’ and ‘Joymoti’ by Manju Borah among others.
He also did the cinematography for Manju Borah’s documentaries like ‘Brahmaputra’.
Altogether Raj Gopal Mishra has worked in more than 10 Assamese films and six out of these have won awards at the regional and national level.
