My Vision for Nepal

My Vision for Nepal | Make more people see more Nepali movies

Nischal Basnet

May 10, 2021, 3:10 p.m.

Make more people see more Nepali movies

Three ways to realize the vision:

1) Stakeholders should focus on making classy and not just commercially successful movies.
2) Directors should not limit their horizons and underestimate the sensibility of our viewers.
3) Newcomers in the industry should be brave enough to take up unique challenges.

I believe we Nepalis need to learn that you get respect only when you learn to respect others. In my field, I respect everyone—from other actors to spot boys. This helps build healthy relations with the people I work with.

I know that I must respect them because they value my work and give their time to fulfill my dreams and projects. But in our country hierarchical norms often dominate our relations and the lower ones in social hierarchy feel humiliated.

Family means a lot to Nepalis and strong family bonds are our great asset. But, to an extent, these bonds may have made us a bit lazy as well because we are too dependent on our parents. The most important thing I learned from living abroad is to respect work, regardless of its nature. There, I saw people do not hesitate to do any kind of job—they earn and live for themselves.

One of the major problems we face as a society is that we want to be seen as having high standards of life. This mentality makes us disrespect certain kinds of work and the people engaged in it.

Talking about my own sector, I feel bad saying that the government is yet to consider the Nepali movie sector an ‘industry’. Films have contributed immensely to our country—our work is related to culture and tradition. It appeals to the masses, inspires people, and can potentially change the society.

Yes, movies entertain. But that’s not the only thing they do. Sadly, our audience takes movies ‘only’ as a form of entertainment—this is a shame.

The period before the Maoist insurgency was the golden era for the Nepali movie industry. Only a handful of movies were made, but they were quality movies that would be screened in limited theaters with large viewership.

After the end of the insurgency, Nepali moviemakers started looking for movies that could make easy profits. As new technology came in, many people, even those who did not know anything about movies, started to invest in it. This led to the degradation in the quality of movies.

In the meantime India flourished with masterpieces, and Nepali moviemakers started copying their style, pattern, and even stories. Still, many Nepali directors are blindly copying foreign films.

The Nepali audience thus does not follow our movies and we are compelled to prove our credentials time and again. A couple of decades back, our movies portrayed our own story through original characters. But now, screenplays reflect our society with an Indian twist—which is such a disgrace.

I stopped watching Nepali movies after the insurgency. We lost audience and their trust and we have failed to regain it to this day.

But after the release of Kagbeni in 2008, the first digital movie of Nepal, many people returned to watching Nepali films, proving that quality matters.

Of late too there has been some progress. There are now quality courses on filmmaking on offer. Moreover, newcomers are brave enough to challenge the stereotypes and to experiment. They might struggle for some time, but I think they will certainly shape the Nepali movie industry in their own way.

Yet there is a lot we need to work on. With the focus now on ‘social awareness’, we are even failing to entertain the audience. Only a few films manage to strike a chord with them. The Nepali movie industry has somehow always failed to strike the right balance between entertainment and social awareness.

The industry can’t grow if only a few movies get the market. We need healthy marketing approaches to promote our movies. If you look at foreign movies, different genres are appreciated and producers
invest and experiment in them. Here in Nepal, if one film becomes a hit, producers start copying it blindly. As a filmmaker, you need to think out of the box. Yes, movies need a commercial market but that’s not the only indicator of a successful film.

In this digital era, and importantly, during this Covid-19 crisis, we have the capacity to make movies that can easily get into Netflix, but we have a small market. These sites are business-oriented and they primarily look to develop big markets. Also, we might also have been overshadowed by the two huge movie markets of India and China. This doesn’t mean we can’t compete—we can and we should.

We should still make our presence felt through various kinds of experimentation. We have so many stories and so many places are yet to be explored. Our human resources have gotten experience in foreign sets. So why are we afraid of starting our own projects?

Look at South Korea. They have made a lot of progress in just a decade. One of their movies even won an Oscar last year. Their government and stakeholders supported the filmmakers, but it was the filmmakers who took the initiative.

We do not take the same kind of initiative here. We do not coordinate. Our industry is fractured.

Moreover, our projects don’t get much recognition and appreciation. Media also likes to play up our controversies, and does not appreciate our struggle in the industry.

Have you ever seen stories on actors and filmmakers on the front page of a Nepali newspaper? Why do political stories always get the front page?

The only place where we get a little appreciation is at the National Awards, and it too has its flaws. It takes place at the President’s House. But due to mismanagement, many times, the awardee gets stuck at the gate of the Sheetal Niwas. Isn’t that disrespectful?

Lastly, the only thing I want to say let’s work together for our sector’s betterment. We can still reach great heights.

Nischal Basnet