2011 Film Descriptions

DANCING KATHMANDU

43 minutes, 2007
Directed by Sangita Shresthova
www.bollynatyam.com

Screening times (screening w/Malaamee):
2:00 pm in Theatre 1
5:00 pm in Theatre 3

Sangita, a dancer of Czech-Nepali origin, journeys to Kathmandu to explore how practitioners in the Himalayan region negotiate Nepal's dance traditions in a period of rapid cultural change. In her attempts to map the current situation of dance in Kathmandu valley, she encounters her own teachers as well as dancers currently coming of age. Dancing Kathmandu tells stories of nostalgia, passion and survival through dance and dancers in the age of globalization.

LIVING BY THE RIVER

17 minutes, 2009
Directed by Manoj Raj Pandey

Screening times (screening w/The Rat Hunters):
11:30 am in Theatre 3
2:00 pm in Theatre 3

Living by the River is a film about the survival of Nepal’s Majhi people, a highly marginalized indigenous group who have for generations been living and fishing along the banks of the Narayani River near Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. In the past, the River provided for them and their families, but gone are the days when fish were plentiful and a catch or single throw of a net would be sufficient for a whole day. Their struggle to provide for their families in spite of spending day and night on the water has put this traditional occupation in jeopardy and the livelihood of the Majhi people at stake.

Special Mention Jury Award at the Third International
Indigenous Film Festival of Nepal

Special Mention Jury Award in Nepal Panorama category of Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival in 2009


IN SEARCH OF RIYAL

86 minutes, 2009
Directed by: Kesang Tseten
www.shunyatafilms.com

Screening times:
11:30 am in Theatre 4
2:00 pm in Theatre 4

In Search of the Riyal is the first documentary of Kesang Tseten’s trilogy on Nepali migrant workers in the Arabian Gulf. Since the 1990s, Nepal has provided a pipeline of cheap labour to the Gulf, emptying villages of its young men, who set out to escape poverty for wages of US $5 to $7 a day in the alien and stultifying conditions of the Qatari desert. Theirs is an admirable mission, a test of luck and resilience. The film shows glimpses of gritty migrant conditions, rarely captured, given the Gulf States’ sensitivity to criticism of how they treat their foreign workers. The stories of disillusionment and, sometimes, empowerment reflect the enormity of the Nepali migrant’s journey.

Special Mention Jury Award in the International category of Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival in 2009

MALAAMEE (FUNERAL)

20 minutes, 2008
Director by Subarna Thapa

Screening times (screening w/Dancing Kathmandu):
2:00 pm in Theatre 1
5:00 pm in Theatre 3

Confusion spreads through a rural village after the local miller abruptly passes away and there are no able men to carry the deceased. All the men have left the village in search of work and only the women and children remain.

MUKUNDO

105 minutes, 2000
Directed by Tsering Rhitar Sherpa

Screening times:
11:00 am in Theatre 1
4:45 pm in Theatre 1

The first feature film by Tsering Rhitar Sherpa, Mukundo shares the life of Dipak and Saraswati in Kathmandu. A devoted father and an adoring husband, Dipak works as a security guard, while Saraswati happily tends to traditional housework. Their home is modest, and their two girls are happy. Saraswati’s life would be perfect if only she could give her husband a son. On the advice of a stranger, Saraswati prays to a new spirit with miraculous results. When the blessing turns to tragedy, the distraught couple appeals to Gita, a jhangrini or healer, revered as a powerful spirit medium. Gita's own crisis of faith forces all three to a dizzying climax, leaving the lines between secular and spiritual desires eerily blurred.

“I am always disturbed and confused by all the rituals and beliefs, which are so much part of our society that we tend to take them for granted. The film is an expression and exploration of this confusion, and I feel that the art of shamanism is the perfect metaphor for expressing this in the context of present Nepali society.”
- Tsering Rhitar Sherpa

Academy Awards Consideration (Nepal) for Best Foreign Language Film, 2000

Winner of Best Screenplay at the Nepal Film Award in 2000

SAVING DOLMA

62 minutes, 2010
Directed by Kesang Tseten
www.shunyatafilms.com

Screening times:
2:00 pm in Theatre 2
5:00 pm in Theatre 4

Saving Dolma, another film in Kesang Tseten’s trilogy on Nepali migrant workers in the Gulf, documents the struggles of female migrant workers. Thousands of Nepalese women work illegally in the Gulf to relieve the poverty at home. The film follows the thread of Dolma, sentenced to death for killing a Filipino co-domestic in Kuwait, and presents the multiple responses to this event - the upheaval and fractures of Dolma’s family, and the reactions of women’s advocacy groups and Nepali society and officialdom. The film provides a rare glimpse into the situation of women migrants in the Gulf States, and exposes the vulnerable conditions of ill-educated and ill-prepared women from a poor country making this enormous journey.

SHERPAS - THE TRUE HEROES OF MT. EVEREST

95 minutes, 2009
Directed by Otto C. Honegger, Frank Senn and Hari Thapa

Screening times:
11:00 am in Theatre 2
4:45 pm in Theatre 2

Sherpas - The True Heroes of Mount Everest showcases the work, hardships and life of the Sherpas at Mount Everest. The film follows the expedition of the Swiss mountain guide Kari Kobler and his European climbers as they climb the highest mountain in the world, a feat un-imaginable without the support and guidance of their hired Nepali Sherpas. Among the Sherpas is Dawa, who has peaked Everest thirteen times. Throughout the film, the Sherpas share their stories, feelings and fears on the climb. They tell us bluntly what it means for them to work for Western climbers and to act as their leaders on the top of the world, sometimes risking their own lives to save a Western client.

Best Film Jury Award in Nepal Panorama category of
Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival in 2009

THE RAT HUNTERS

45 minutes, 2009
Directed by Pradeep Kumar Sharma
www.therathunters.com

Screening times (screening w/Living by the River):
11:30 am in Theatre 3
2:00 pm in Theatre 3

The Rat Hunters documents the lifestyle of a rat hunting community from South Asia called “Mushahar” (literally meaning ‘rat eater’). The Mushahars depicted in the film are members of a landless tribe considered ‘untouchable’ in Nepal. The film follows a five-day bamboo-trading journey on an ancient oxen cart in the southern plains of Nepal’s Terai region on the border of India. Centering on Bikon Saday, a sixty-year-old Mushar man, and his fellow traders, the film exposes the hardships they face as impoverished bonded labourers working for a local landlord.

Pradeep Kumar Sharma is a Nepali-Canadian filmmaker based in Vancouver. He will be in attendance and available to answer audience questions.