TNFF 2010 Selected Films/Shorts

English Title: A Silent Monsoon

Nepal; 2006; Colour; Nepali Subtitled

Duration: 34 mins

Synopsis:
The film is based on the Badi community, of whose female members are born into sex trade workers. A mother struggles to keep her twelve-year-old daughter from the family trade. Filmed within a picturesque Nepali landscape, there are dark undertones abound.

Director: Pravesh Gurung

Pravesh Gurung was born in Singapore. He received a Masters degree from Kathmandu University School of Management, and went on to work for a NGO in Nepal. During his tenure at the NGO, he had to do extensive travels in rural Nepal, which became formative for his later filmmaking career. He studied filmmaking at California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) and has been actively making films including Home and First Flush. He currently works in Mumbai, India.

Canada; 2008; Colour; Nepali/English: Subtitled

Duration: 46 mins;

Synopsis:
The film follows Bruce Cockburn when he returns to Nepal after 20 years. The film reveals glimpses of the rural terrain of Nepal as Bruce plays his guitar, learns local tunes, finds spiritual wisdom, and learns about tactics for survival in the rugged Himalayas.

Director: Robert Lang

Robert Lang is a director, producer, writer and cameraman who, over the past fifteen years has been responsible for production of over 150 television programs. Since he first began as a director/cameraman at the NFB in Montreal in the 1970s, themes of sustainability and biodiversity have been central to his work in documentaries like Potatoes (NFB, 1976), Fragile Harvest (CBC, 1985), Earth Journal with Richard Leakey (NBC-TV, 1991), River of Sand (TVO/Vision TV, 1998) and The Sacred Balance with David Suzuki (CBC/PBS, 2002).

Nepal; 2010; Colour; English

Duration: 4:48 min

Synopsis:
In this animation a young goat gets separated from his father when the butcher yanks him away. The short advocates animal rights.

Director: Deepak Limbu

Deepak Limbu is a Kathmandu based animator and concept artist. He combines traditional methods of art and contemporary climate to bring out a fusion of creativity and experience.

USA; 2008; Colour; Nepali/English Subtitled

Duration: 90 mins;

Synopsis:
Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, the film is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties.

Director: Julie Bridgham

Julie Bridgham is a Sundance Institute Documentary Fellow, and the Filmmaker's and Producer of the award-winning documentary, The Sari Soldiers, for which she received the 2008 Nestor Almendros Prize. Over the past six years, she has lived for extended periods in Nepal where she produced and directed numerous documentaries including several documentaries for the United Nations and the films Indentured Daughters, a documentary on Nepali girls sent into bonded labour, as well as the films Hope in the Himalayas and Children of Hope for the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation.

Nepal; 2009; Colour

Duration: 2:45 min

Synopsis:
This short animation is from a child’s perspective and is about pollution and advocates for a cleaner environment.

Director: Deepak Limbu

Deepak Limbu is a Kathmandu based animator and concept artist. He combines traditional methods of art and contemporary climate to bring out a fusion of creativity and experience.

Nepal; 2006; Colour; Nepali/English Subtitled

Duration: 22 mins

Synopsis:
Forty percent of the People’s Liberation Army, Maoist Party’s guerrilla outfit was comprised of women cadres. This compelling documentary reviews the people’s war from women's perspectives and explores reasons why many women joined the Maoist party and took up arms to fight.

Director: Subina Shrestha

Subina Shrestha is based in Kathmadu and has been working as a journalist and filmmaker for the past nine years. She studied social work and print journalism in Nepal, India and the US. Her films include The Big Top Shuffle, The Last Race, and Un Amor Sin La Vida.

Nepal; 2006; Colour; Nepali Subtitled

Duration: 50 mins

Synopsis:
The award-winning film tells the story of a remote Tamang village that is getting a Swiss-funded trail bridge. Unfortunately the predominantly Buddhist village is rapidly converting into Christianity leading to complicated village politics.

Director: Kesang Tseten

Kesang Tseten is a Nepali filmmaker of Tibetan origin, the director of In Search of Riyal; Frames of War; We Corner People; Machhendranath: On the Road with the Red God; and We Homes Chaps. He has won many awards including the Best Nepali Documentary, Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, 2006 for We Corner People and Grand Prize at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival, UK, 2006 for Macchendranath.
 

USA/Nepal; 2004; Colour; Nepali/English Subtitled

Duration: 56 mins

Synopsis:
The award-winning documentary follows the first-ever all Sherpa women expedition team as they leave behind their usual household chores to climb Mount Everest. It is truly a dramatic and inspiring story.

Directors: Ramyata Limbu and Sapana Sakya

Ramyata Limbu is a veteran Nepali journalist, and for the last fifteen years worked as a journalist for the Nepali Times, Kantipur Publications and as a freelance journalist for the Inter-Press News Agency. She co-produced and shot the award winning feature independent documentary Daughters Of Everest, which followed the first team of all women, Nepali Sherpa climbers to ascend Everest. She is also the Festival Filmmaker's of Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival.

Sapana Sakya is the Media Fund Filmmaker's at the Centre for Asian American Media in California, where she manages CPB funding initiatives and supports independent filmmakers. Sapana’s background is in independent documentary and journalism. She produced and directed Daughters of Everest, an award-wining film about the first Nepali women’s Everest expedition. Her other works include Oklahoma Home, about two Filipino doctors living and working in rural Oklahoma, part of the series Searching for Asian America. She also produced and directed, Red White Blue.

English Title: In Search of a Song

Nepal; 2004; Color

Duration: 56 mins

Subtitled: Nepali

Synopsis:
A spontaneous visual documentation of an acclaimed journalist and two band members of Nepathya, a popular Nepali rock band as they trek the Himalayan region of Lantang to find the roots of a folk song called Bhedako Oon Jasto (literal translation: Like the wool of a sheep).

Director: Kiran Krishna Shrestha

Kiran Krishna Shrestha is based in Kathmandu and is the team leader of Nepa-laya, an organization that has been active in promoting arts and music in Nepal. Bhedako Oon Jasto is Kiran’s debut film and has been screened around the globe and it received Special Mention Award at Film South Asia 2003 in Kathmandu.