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Yet another Nepali film is set to have its world premiere at the 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year.

'Gaun Aayeko Bato' (A Road to A Village), directed by Nabin Subba, will be screened in the prestigious international film festival to be held from September 7-17 in Canada.

Subba's movie portrays how conflict makes inroads into the relationship between a father and his son after a road track is opened in their village.

Set against the social backdrop of indigenous Rai community, the movie features artists such as Dayahang Rai, Pashupati Rai, Prasana Rai, Keshav Rai, Sumitra Rai, Raj Thapa and Prem Subba among others.

Mahesh Rai and director Subba have jointly written the script of the movie where international cinematographer Josh Heram, editor Kwan Pun Leung and musician Heidi Li have collaborated.

Along with 'Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa', it has become the second Nepali story selected for world premiere in the TIFF this year.

During a press meet organized recently to inform about the selection, director Subba said that this selection had not only increased the visibility of Nepali movies worldwide, it had also further enhanced its authentic international representation.

Subba, credited to direct internationally critically-acclaimed films such as 'Khangri' and 'Numafung' and the like, shared that 'Gaun Aayeko Bato' is a community-funded film with contributions from Nepali individuals at home and abroad, the makers said.

Preeti Kaur, 42, is a Nepali pop singer. In the 2000s, she was well-known for her vocals. She started her career in 2004 and has ever since been a part of the Nepali music industry. To date, she has released more than a dozen songs and albums.

Her interest in music started when she was a child and she came across the songs of Mariah Carey, an American singer and songwriter. “I had her poster, but I realized who she was only after hearing her songs on MTV, a music channel that was hugely popular back in the 90s and 2000s,” she says. Kaur listened to her songs on repeat and tried to imitate the singer’s vocals whenever she could. 

Listening to Mariah Carey made her want to learn Western classical music, but there were no courses offered at the time. So she eventually turned to Eastern classical music. Her professional career began after winning the Shikhar Beat Contest. That, she says, was the starting point of her career. 

She was approached for numerous projects and had the opportunity to perform on stage with a variety of bands, including Nepsiders, Nirnaya, 1974 AD, and Prasna. ‘Dherai Palta’ was the first song she released. It was recorded in one take. She says this song established her position in the Nepali music industry. 

Despite the love and attention she was receiving, she claims she was unsatisfied. Even though she was an established artist at the time, she wanted new experiences. In 2010, she moved to Mumbai in India in search of more opportunities. In three years, she did land up as a background vocalist for the movie ‘Besharam’. But she found it quite challenging to build her reputation from scratch so she decided to return. 

Upon her return to Nepal, she decided to take some time off. Nevertheless, she continued teaching music classes while continuing her musical studies. In response to a request from a friend, in 2015 she uploaded her song ‘Bellydancer’ on YouTube, a month before the devastating Nepal earthquakes. She then released ‘Timrai Lagi’ in 2017 and its studio version in 2021. Since then, she has been working nonstop to bring out new tunes.

Kaur doesn’t focus on a specific genre.  Instead, she experiments a lot. “Everything happens randomly,” she says. She and her band composed songs and melodies for the Shikhar Beat Contest audition in just around 15 minutes. Likewise, influenced by Etta James, an American singer,  ‘Timrai Lagi’ is one of her personal favorites. She views music as an original creation without rigid limitations. “There are no rules. You can take a lot of creative liberties,” says Kaur.

A few months back, she released a new song that differs significantly from her previous releases. It’s a Teej song called ‘Dhalki Dhalki’. She likes her new work and says that working on it was both tough and thrilling. She claims her husband, Kamal Raj Bhatta, inspired her to come up with the song. Kaur credits him for the unwavering motivation he provides at every step of her life. He is a constant cheerleader, she says. 

“Things were a lot easier when I started. Now, an artist’s popularity is influenced by digital trends and it’s just hard to keep up,” she says. She also took a 10-year break from social media, which, in hindsight, she can see has negatively impacted her career. “It’s a bit difficult to catch up with the trends,” says Kaur. Nevertheless, she considers the challenge her opportunity for resurrection in the music world. She is adamant to do what it takes to make a comeback of sorts and become a household name. 

She is currently working on recreating her old song ‘Parewa ko Jodi’, combining it with her own Punjabi folk song. Realizing her tunes must keep up with the changing times, she is trying to weave elements the audience loves into her music.

But what she really wants to do is create music that captures the cultural diversity of Nepal. For now, she’s focused on relaunching herself with the band ‘Pretty & The Boyz’.

'The Red Suitcase' directed by Fidel Devkota has been selected for the 80th Venice Film Festival.

The Nepali film, which portrays the impact of foreign employment in Nepali society, was selected for the festival under the Horizon category, said Devkota.

This is the third Nepali film that made it to the Venice Film Festival after 'Kalo Pothi' and 'Seto Surya'. Both of the films had foreigners as producer and cinematographer.

'The Red Suitcase' has become the first Nepali film completely made by a domestic production group to be selected in the Venice Film Festival.

Director Devkota wrote the screenplay of the film that features artists such as Saugat Malla, Bipin Karki, Pravin Khatiwada and Shristi Shrestha among others.

The Venice Film Festival will be held from August 30 to September 9 in Venice, Italy.

 

Tina Turner, the pioneering rock’n’roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged 83 after a long illness, The Guardian reported.

She had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017.

Turner affirmed and amplified Black women’s formative stake in rock’n’roll, defining that era of music to the extent that Mick Jagger admitted to taking inspiration from her high-kicking, energetic live performances for his stage persona.

After two decades of working with her abusive husband, Ike Turner, she struck out alone and – after a few false starts – became one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s with the album Private Dancer. Her life was chronicled in three memoirs, a biopic, a jukebox musical, and in 2021, the acclaimed documentary film, Tina. 

In a statement on Wednesday night, her publicist Bernard Doherty said: “Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock’n Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland. With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”

Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on 26 November 1939 and raised in Nutbush, Tennessee, where she recalled picking cotton with her family as a child. She sang in the tiny town’s church choir, and as a teenager talked – or rather, sang – her way into Ike’s band in St Louis: he had declined her request to join until he heard her seize the microphone during a Kings of Rhythm performance for a rendition of BB King’s You Know I Love You, according to The Guardian.

After her vocal talents became apparent, Ike gave her the name Tina Turner – and trademarked it in case she left him and he wanted to replace her in his act. He quickly became abusive: when Turner tried to leave the group early on after having got a sense of his mercurial character, he hit her with a wooden shoe stretcher.

She made her recorded debut under the name with the Ike and Tina Turner single A Fool in Love in July 1960, which broke the US Top 30 and started a run of respectable chart success. But it was their live performances that made them a sensation. Ike toured the Ike and Tina Turner Revue aggressively on the Chitlin’ Circuit – including in front of desegregated audiences, such was their commercial power. In 1964, they signed to Warner Bros imprint Loma Records, which released their first album to chart: Live! The Ike & Tina Turner Show.

In the second half of the 60s, the duo were courted by many of rock’s biggest names. Phil Spector produced the 1966 single River Deep – Mountain High; they supported the Rolling Stones in the UK and later the US, and stars including David Bowie, Sly Stone, Cher, Elvis Presley and Elton John came to their Las Vegas residency.

They were a chart-making, Grammy-winning force in the 1970s – a run that came to an end when Turner left Ike, who had been consistently violent and unfaithful, in 1976. Her last single with the group was Baby, Get It On, from the 1975 film adaptation of the Who’s rock opera Tommy, in which she starred as Acid Queen, a character of the same name of her second solo album, The Guardian reported.

In the divorce, finalised in 1978, Turner came away with just two cars and the rights to her stage name. “Ike fought a little bit because he knew what I would do with it,” she said in the documentary Tina.

Turner, who had already released two solo records, continued pursuing a solo career, though it would take until she released her fifth album, 1984’s Private Dancer, for her to supplant the old image of the shimmying rock’n’roller – and escape premature relegation to the oldies circuit – with one of a powerful, mullet-sporting, leather-clad pop icon.