Showbiz

Managing Awards

From the first to the fourth, all the National Motion Picture Awards have been controversial. Still, the annual event seemed to be getting more business like this time, view the industry sources. The organisers also claim that the market has expanded nearly 30 or 35% after the awards started to be presented three years ago. Concluded at a cost of Rs. 1.6 million, the latest (or the fourth) event of this series is learnt to have managed from falling into the red, though the controversaries around the judgement of the jury in selecting the award receipients were there also this time as they are in other countries.

Had the promises of the first National Motion Picture Award, three years ago been materialized, the Nepali cinema industry would have entered the international market earlier. The promise then was to subtitle in English the movies that would be adjudged the best. But the Rs. 2 million extravaganza that the ceremony turned out to be, caused a Rs. 500,000 loss to the organisers and also the selection for the awards turned out to be very much controversial.

That affected the ceremony the next year very badly. Producers refused to contest for the award and the organisers just managed to hold the event as a mere ritual, spending about Rs. 700,000.

But the expectations were very high initially from the third events. Instead of Bishnu Gopal Shrestha who headed the organising committee in the previous two years, it was the turn of Uddhav Poudel. But it was later alleged that traders and businessmen were handed over the reins. So, the cine-artistes and others involved in the business started having negative views about the award. But as the sponsors were strong, the event concluded at a cost of Rs. 1.1 million, just breaking even.

Again it was shrestha who got appointed the chairman of the organising committee for this year's National Motion Picture Awards. But he again failed to keep the awards away from the controversies. Keeping the costs at a reasonable seems to have been the primary concern. And Shresth accepts that. "The expenses in organising the award function should give some guidelines to the cineworkers", he said. Last year, the Mahendra Chalachitra Sadhana Samman presented to Nir Shah had also carried a purse of Rs. 100,000. But Yadav Kharel, who received it this year, was not as fortunate.

Despite the controversies, it is true that these annual events have been helping to expand the market, at least in case of the movies selected for the award. Industry watchers think that the controversies are more because these are the only awards in this sector in Nepal, whereas elsewhere (e.g. in India) there are two - national awards sponsored by the government and filmfare awards sponsored by private sector. While the national awards are more of academic in nature and honour the creativity, the other is primarily based on the commercial success and so is more glamorous.

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