| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 06:15 AM
If there is a true-blue "independent film-maker" in Nepal, he is Nabin Subba.
Born in eastern Nepal, and raised on a diet of watching too many classic European
movies (Fellinni, Bergman, etc) in Kathmandu and India, Nabin, together with Dipendra Gauchan, remains a passionate friend to talk and discuss at length about good movies and the craft of making (Nepali) movies that are stunning in their artistry, simplicity
and, above all, heartfelt humanity.
And so, congrats to Nabin on his latest movie "Numafung" (meaning: "a beautiful
flower" in Limbu language) recently winning an audience award ("prix du public") in
the 9th Vesoul Internatinal Asian Film Festival that was held near Paris, France.
Other winners in that festival were:
Cyclo d'or - prix du jury: Le faisan d'or (Altyn Kyrghol) of Marat
Sarulu (Kirghizstan)
Prix du jury NETPAC (network for the promotion of asian film) : La pleureuse (Qu Qi De Nü Ren) of Liu Bingjian (China)
Prix du jury jeunes (young): Enchaînées (Asurot) of Anat Even et Ada Ushpiz
(Israël)
Thanks too to Chantal Lama and Prabin Rana at Kathmandu's Alliance Francaise for assisting Nabin to get to France and take part in the festival.
************
An EXTRACT from a review of NUMAFUNG:
REVIEW
The Sweet Perfume of Numafung
A feature film from Nepal remains ethnographically sensitive and provides a window to the specificities of the patriarchy that controls rural life in one corner of the country.
reviewed by Seira Tamang
Numafung
Feature film
108 minutes, Nepali, 2001
Directed by Nabin Subba
Written and produced by Nabin Subba, a Kathmandu filmmaker, the film Numafung is situated within a Limbu community in easternmost Nepal and centers around the life of the older of two daughters (Numafung, beautiful flower ) of a poor Limbu farming couple in a non-descript rural village. The main story line consists of Numafung being married against her wishes to a young man of her own age a happy marriage that ends abruptly and early with the young mans untimely death.
Following a miscarriage that according to societal norms terminates her relationship to her in-laws, Numafung returns to her parents home, only to be married off again. Her second husband, Girihang, is older, richer and a truly odious man a violent, arrogant drunkard. Suffering gravely at the hands of this man, Numafung runs away with another man who has shown her consideration, a lahuray (a migrant worker, often a recruit) and her parents and younger sister lose their home as a result of having to pay jari to the husband (a form of compensation usually paid by the man who takes the wife from the husband).
For more:
http://www.himalmag.com/2002/november/review.htm
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| SITARA |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 08:49 AM
Ashu:
Thanks for bringing this film and Mr. Subba's achievements to our notice. I wonder if one can rent such "small budget" foreign films.
I also recall Dipendra Gauchan, a talented young man with a passion for dramatics and film making. Didn't he make "Unjaili"?
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| gokul |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 02:12 PM
Nabin,
Congratulations!!
Uhi Gokul
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| vivid |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 04:00 PM
Congratulations! Nabin Ji.
Nice to know that 'NUMANGFUNG' won the audience award in France, despite being denounced by our own nepalese in some parts of Europe.
Hope that your trip to Switzerland, France and Germany went on well without any hassles.
Bokkhim.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 07-Apr-03 05:12 PM
Sitara,
Yes, Dipendra Gauchan made "Ujeli" -- a film on child marriage a few years ago.
For some time now, I have been urging Dipendra to stop making all these "bikasay" documentaries (which are lucrative to make,yes; but utterly boring to watch) and
start making a few full-length feature films. Dipendra says he would like to return
to making feature films.
Nabin's previous movie "Khangri" (set in a Sherpa community) was a so-so effort technically. Numafung is much better. Still, I think that Nabin's best works are yet
to come.
Another film-maker to watch is Tsering Ritar Sherpa, whose movie "Mukundo: Mask of Desire" earned much praise two years ago.
As a movie fanatic and an armchair social observer, I find it very intriguing that while Nepal's Kollywood, with its usual dance-around-a-tree routine is dominated by the likes of Daya Ram Dahal, Ujjwal Poudel, Yadav Kharel, Tulsi Ghimire, Prakash Thapa and other bahun and chettris, Nepal's innovative, subtle, artistically sophisticated "independent film movement" (if one can call non-Kollywod films that!) is being led to international aclaim by non-bahun/chettri directors such as Dipendra,
Nabin and Tsering.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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