Ujjwol Lamichhane

Nepal, the small landlocked country between big nations India and China has transited from 230 years of monarchy to a federal republic by the decade’s long people’s war. With the nation being republic, many changes of course political to social are undergoing in Nepal. From leaders debating on the constitution to people shouting for their rights on street, the republic nation is seeing thousands of changes. After the successful Constitutional Assembly Elections the civilians are being changed to optimistic. But is the cinema industry getting a real change?

Cinema Industry in Nepal was started in 1951 by the release of the film D. B. Pariyar’s Satya Harishchandra. From black-and-white era to the color there have changes in movie making, distributing and viewing. Portraying the nation culturally the cinema has played an important role in this nation’s transition. But now, Nepalese cinema industry is believed not to have changed and is loosing it ground stand as it is now not considered a strong medium to get into masses.

­The Mumbai based cinema industry today dominates the cinema in Nepal.  Nepalese movies these days are limited to certain class of people. Youth of today hate even talking about Nepalese movies. Why is this so? There are many reasons for Nepalese Cinema lacking industry.

I read somewhere that a typical Nepali Movie consist of a producer or producer’s relative being the protagonist with some characters of family and the story of Ram and Sita where Ram saves her love Sita. The other aspect of movie making like script writing, cinematography, screenplay and others is the job of almost one person and based on desire of who invests on it. This is main reason behind the lack of quality movie being made which can stand out fierce competition from big cinema industries like Bollywood. Adding to this problem, a typical director, script writer, music director and other technical person including the actors and actress work on more than at least 4/5 movies resulting a lack of concentration on their working which at last produces a old stereotype movie.

The prime reason for decline of Nepalese cinema is also the conflict throughout the nation. The start of the Maoist revolution was the start of the downfall of the Nepali film industry. That resulted in lower budgets and even lower performances, which resulted in even smaller audiences, which is still showing it effects. The government should also show some responsibility towards the industry to grow again.

Many youth point out that the use of old technology in making movie is also one of the prime causes of the decline of Nepalese movies.  Technology used in making a typical Kollywood movie is obsolete which is directly reflects its lack of viewers.  Though recently some HD movies have started appearing, the Nepalese Cinema is still using the 16mm Arriflex cameras of 1950’s even today. This result in the poor quality of the video. With this technology Nepalese Cinema do not even match the international standards of movie making resulting of them being displaced even in its own ground.

Next reason is that the hierarchy with which the movie is made is absolutely unprofessional.  The person who invests on the movie is always a big boss in the movie making hierarchy. He or she chooses almost all professional from actors to music directors, which the director must accept anyway. This causes hindrance for the director to expose their creativity and choose the perfect fit professional.  And this pattern must be changed to see a better change in screens. One should be given absolute freedom to their work. Directors should be allowed to direct with their ideas, and same applies for all other professionals too. But the professionals of the movie industry including the actors also must stay focused on fixed number of the movies at once rather than  working on more than five/six movies at a time which is happening now.

On the other hand, many argue that Nepalese Cinema Industry has creativity but what the industry lacks is the budget. In most of the cases, it seems true as the main reason which satisfies that producer himself being the boss of the hierarchy.  The way the mass is attracted to Bollywood they are not attracted to the Nepalese Cinema because of the lack of proper budget for cinema as that of it’s Bollywood counterpart. The people here now feel that with old industry methods, small budget and unprofessional technicians the industry has nothing to offer. Illustrating this, the Nepalese Cinema saw an overwhelming response to big budget movies like Kagbeni as it brought new standards to the cinema industry though the investment was a failure for producers.

The next big factor for decline of Nepali Cinema is the small screen. The potential viewers of movie are those who the viewers of small screen; the television. And in Nepal the small screen is dominated by Indian Entertainment Channels on the cable network, which reason for strong base of the Bollywood in Nepal. The un-flourishing entertainment channel in the television is the problem which needs to be addressed. This also adds to result that the Nepalese Cinema is unable to compete with Bollywood on it’s own ground. The booming news channels have nothing to offer for the cinema industry. And to see a flourishing cinema industry we must also have a flourishing small screen which is what Nepal lacks.

With all the reasons and suggestion for unchanging cinema in Nepal, the prime work to be done is change the mentality and start working. The Government should also start promoting the industry and clear out any hindrances in anyways possible. At last, we all Nepalese are also equally responsible to revive the nation’s cultural portrait, so let’s start to support the changes in cinema industry.

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Tagged: Cinema, Nepal, Review