Award winning Nepali documentary to come to cinemas on March 15

The award winning documentary 'Who will be a Gurkha' will hit the big screen in several towns across Nepal from March 15, said filmmaker Kesang Tseten.

A result of international co-production, the film was awarded grants from prestigious film institutions such as the Sundance Institute, the International Film Festival of Amsterdam and Busan International Film Festival. The film had a Finnish executive producer who brought in Finnish funding, and also an editor and composer from Finland, while Norwegian support funded sound design and colour grading.

“Documentaries are generally thought of as being sober, serious and boring,” said Tseten. “While that is often true, in fact the documentary is a wonderful form that is full of possibilities, encompassing a wide range of methods of telling stories and cinematic practice.”

'Who will be a Gurkha' is an observational film, about the recruiting process for the British army, as it happens in the confined setting of a British Gurkha Camp in Pokhara. It has no to-the-camera interviews, no narration, no central characters.

“Usually, documentaries are shown in film festivals and small venues, so this will test the public appetite for documentaries,” said Tseten. “A cinema release for a documentary is very difficult or impossible in all of South Asia, but it is happening in Nepal,” said Tseten, whose venture is being supported and co-presented by Gongaju Films, which together with QFX and distributor Digital Cinema Nepal, are exploring and promoting alternate cinema in Nepal. nepalnews.com