Sujata Koirala, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Nepal, has assured to assist the government in bringing her son-in-law into justice if found guilty. The Tiger Top incident has taken much hype in past few days. Rubel Chaudhary shall be brought into justice if he is found to be guilty – says Koirala talking to media in Tibhuvan International Airpot on her way back from Indonesia.
“Nobody is above the law†and nobody should be any exception, she adds. However Koirala also adds, “his (Rubel) involvement in illegal activities is baseless and one cannot accuse anybody without proof.”
A new shopping mall, Civil Mall, was launched in the center of Kathmandu, Sundhara, in September of 2010. The mall is considered to be a luxurious shopping center similar to City Center. The main attraction of City Center was Big Cinemas, and the big attraction of Civil Mall is another big theatre. Probably, the most expensive theatre in Nepal is named QFX Central. Unlike Big Cinemas, QFX is financed by Nepali nationals and is also a part of Jai Nepal and Kumari theatre. But, that doesn’t mean QFX screens Nepali movies.
The motto of Civil Mall, “There is something for everyone,” is faulty. Sorry guys, you failed for majority of Nepali people, there is nothing for Nepali movie lovers.
Like Big Cinemas, QFX central also thinks Nepali don’t make quality movies and hence doesn’t screen any Nepali movies in it. All you can see in the new, luxurious theater are Hindi and English movies. They prefer flop Hindi movies like No Problem, Je Jyan Se Khelenge Hum to much better Nepali movies like Gorkha Paltan and Bato Muni Ko Phul. Continue reading
Editor’s Note: This article is one of the fact-check analyses for the “Who loves Nepali Movies?†article series. The case study of Guna Cinema and case study of Big Cinema were previously published. All photos by Raunak.
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So-called high class Nepali don’t go to theaters to watch Nepali movies. They say Nepali movies are only for low and lower-middle class people. Why is that?
It is because our theaters practice preferencial treatment to Nepali and Hindi movies! Who would like to be guest to somebody who is so unwelcoming?
Gopi Krishna Movies is one of the biggest multiplex movie theaters in Nepal. Apart from theaters, Gopi Krishna Movies is also engaged in production of Nepali movies. They have been producing at least two movies every year. Like Guna Cinema, Gopi Krishna movies is also directly involved in the betterment of Nepali movies.
Does Gopi Krishna Movies loves Nepali movies?
Nepali movies featured in theaters with torn and damaged seats
Customer sometimes are forced to watch their home production movie
They filter competition when they are featuring home production. Said that, we can safely assume the owner’s friend and families get preferential treatment on holdovers too.
Gopi Krishna has 7 theaters. Out of them, Meera and Radha feature most of the Nepali movies. Recently released movie Dharma, featuring Manisha Koirala, was shown in Radha. The seats shown in Photo 1, is an example of the seats in the theater. Majority of the seats of the theatre are torn and broken. Based on the talents of the crew members and star-casting, the movie was expected to do a very good business, but it wasn’t as successful as expected. We can’t blame the seats, but it would have been better if they could screen such hopeful movies in a better theatre.
This is my second post about Sujata – and second time I am telling "I don’t like writing about politics." But, Sujata has such an ability that I can’t help without writing about her.
Sujata challenged the media to prove the allegations that her son-in-law Rubel Choudhory and also told that she can publish anything in newspaper.
Sujata told, "Anybody can write anything. Even I can write anything against you."
Well, can she? Isn’t that a serious issue – a serious allegation to Nepali media?
There is an old saying in our society that to hide a lie we have to speak hundreds of lies. This is what we can get in the movie Kaslai Diun Yo Joban directed by young and talented director Suresh Darpan Pokharel. Movie is released inside Kathmandu valley from today i.e. December 17, 2010. An old Indian wine in a new Nepali bottle. That sums up Kaslai Diun Yo Joban, directed by Suresh Darpan Pokharel and produced by Kedar Parajuli, Bhanu Acharya and Krishna Shrestha.
A new experiment in Nepali movie industry, a website, merocinema had announced an online award on December 3rd, 2010. After the nomination round, the public voting is going on for the selection of the winners. The final winner will be announced in January.
The nomination for the best movie are:
Kohi Mero
Dashdhunga
Baato Muniko Phool
Desh
First Love
In the similar manner, there are 17 categories and the completion is among 39 movies released in the year 2010 form January t
o November. Please visit merocinema.com to vote for your favorite choice in each categories. A person can only vote once in each category on a given day.
With due respect and support to the award ceremony, I have some reservation on the fairness in popular votes method to choose the winner. A latest example is the Time person of the year selection. Time magazine asked its readers to select the person of the year – the Wikileaks founder was leading by a vast majority of popular votes. But, the final announcement was different from what everybody expected – the Facebook guy Mark Zuckerberg won the Time Person of the Year.
“Do you hate men?†An innocent looking lady who works with me asked.
“No!â€, I replied.
“Then, why don’t you marry?â€
She doesn’t stop asking the same question even after my repeated request not to ask it again. I don’t want any more questions in the topic.
This question makes me feel uncomfortable, and it also freezes me. I am not interested in this institution. My concern is, if I am free from this question in my family circle, why are the outsider even bother? But, they never stop bothering me.
So, I have to answer her question to make sure that she won’t keep asking the question again.
“I am not buying the concept that men are superior to women and that, I can’t live with a man who strongly believes that they are superior creatures on earth.†I added, “In our society, men are brought up with this belief and I look at them with a question in my eyes.â€
Editor’s Note: When Big Cinema told that Nepali movies don’t have quality to be featured in its theater, we took it seriously. Raunak Niroula is doing a more detailed fact-check analysis for the “Who loves Nepali Movies?†article series. This is the case study of Guna Cinema, Gwarko, Lalitpur. Does Guna Cinema love Nepali movies? Let’s see. All photos were taken by Raunak. ************
If you have visited some of the multiplex movie theaters in Kathmandu, you might have noticed how they treat the Nepali movie viewers when compared to the Hindi and English movie viewers. If you haven’t noticed these facts, here is the proof.
It’s not only that Nepali movies are screened in small screen, within a small room located at the corner, the difference can be easily seen from the outside.
The following photo shows the entrance of Guna Cinema. As you can see – this portion of the cinema hall is extremely neglected. If you get an impression that Guna is a low quality cinema hall in Nepal, wait until you see the next photo.
Photo 1: Guna Cinema entrance located outside and open – is mainly used for viewers of Nepali movies
The most awaited movie, Dharma, featuring Manisha Koirala was released recently (on December 10, 2010) all over Nepal. There were two reasons for the craze among movie goers:
First and the most important reason was the comeback of Manisha Koirala in Nepali film after two decades of absence. Movie lovers had a great expectation from Manisha Koirala based on her immense popularity in Hindi movies and Bollywood experience. The second reason was its director Dipendra K Khanal who had presented Rajesh Hamal in a new look in his movie The Yug Dekhi Yug Samma. Dipendra tried to present something new in his first movie The Yug Dekhi Yug Samma, which the viewers didn’t like as expected. Dipendra says that the movie was made in different trend, and was not suitable on our industry. So, he has tried to come up with a purely commercial themes in his movie Dharma. Dipendra has studied film direction in China. This is also one of the reasons to have high hopes on his movies. In short, Dharma has got educated and experienced team. Dharma starcast Rajesh Hamal and Nikhil Upreti apart from Manisha is also another huge strength.
But, medias and newspapers reviews of Dharma is not as good as expected. They say the movie has nothing new and has the same masala that are used in old Hindi and Nepali movies. The only new thing is the actress, team, location, and presentation of those old subject matters.
When I watched the movie, I found the music was also good apart from the team. But the story had nothing new in it and it was was presented in purely filmy way. In some places, those filmy styles were added by force and it was very obvious. The dialogue delivery of Manisha Koirala was also not that good. Manisha had spoken Nepali language in the tone sounding more like Hindi and English. Manisha had expressed her dissatisfaction with the director and his style of direction during the shooting of the movie.
Editor’s Note: Part of the Big Cinema issue was discussed in short previously, in the post titled – Does Nepal need Indian Investment ? The post dealt with Indian investment in Nepal and had a wider scope than Big Cinemas alone. Raunak Niroula has done a more detailed analysis on their decision against Nepali movie and shesds light on how much our own theaters are in waters when treating Nepali cinemas and their viewers. This article is one of the parts of a “Who loves Nepali Movies?” article series.
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We started this series to analyze if the theaters are treating Nepali movies fairly. Let’s start with the latest incident involving Big Cinema, a theater operating on Indian investment.
Big Cinemas, a division of Reliance Media Works Limited (formerly known as Adlabs Films Limited) and a member of Reliance ADA Group is India’s largest cinema chain with over 515 theaters spread across India, US, Malaysia, UK, Netherlands and other countries all over the world. The main aim of Reliance is to spread Big Cinemas multiplex and Indian movies all over the world. It has been a few months that Reliance has launched Big Cinemas in Nepal at NLIC City Centre – a new, luxurious shopping mall at Kamalpokhari, Kathmandu.
The news about Big Cinemas not screening Nepali movies is widely being talked about in Nepali media. Being located in Nepal, their decision against Nepali movie industry is viewed as an insult to the Nepali movie industry and the Nepali people as a whole. In response, Nepali movie fans have created a Facebook group titled “Say No To Big Cinemas In Nepal Because They Don’t Screen Nepali Movies”. The film makers, film producers, producer association and film development board have also voiced their concern in this issue. This issue is also viewed as an example of encroachment of Indian culture to dominate Nepali culture and arts. Continue reading
Before the release of the movie ‘Gorkha Paltan’, most of the people in Nepali movie industry were confident that the movie will not succeed in the box-office. Everybody believed, the movie rely on the main attraction of the movie, the third Indian Idol Prashant Tamang,who turned his career as an actor with this movie. Their assumptions is valid in the historical context of Nepali cinema – singers-turned-actors were mostly successful in the box-office in the past.
Except for a few fans of Prashant Tamang, most of the general public was not that happy by the news that Prashant Tamang was acting in a Nepali movie. Most believed that a lot of Nepali voted Prashant and supported him during Indian Idol contest as he was a good singer. But as an actor he was untested and nobody knew if he was good enough.
Hence, it was clear Prashant Tamang’s reputation will not work to make this movie hit and even the producers were also not that sure in the success of the movie in box-office. That uncertainty might be one of the reasons the producers didn’t care to have a premiere show before being released.
The 5th NRN regional conference is going to be held on January 14-16, 2011 in Dubai, UAE. The main theme of the conference is "Collective Investment and Safe Migration".
The details of the conference can be downloaded as pdf files.
Ex-prince Paras Shah was accused of shooting at Deputy Prime Minister, Sujata Koirala’s daugher and son-in-law, in a jungle resort, Tiger Tops, in Chitwan.
Sujata, currently in Bangkok, reportedly called PM to inform about the incident that happened on Friday evening. Sujata’s daughter Melanie Koirala Jost and her Bangladeshi husband Rubel Chaudhary ran away from Tiger Tops after the incident and took refuge in a guest house in Gaidakot. Sujata’s daughter got married with Rubel back in 2006. The lavish wedding party was accused of being against Nepalese law.
An Indian newspaper, Indian Express, writes that the Home Minister Bhim Rawal refused to obey the PM Nepal’s order to arrest Paras Shah, who had returned back to Kathmandu on Saturday. Rawal however has promised to probe the incident and punish the culprit.
In the recent days, the members of the royal family had been active in various public functions in a bid to win support of the public. Paras’ wife, Himani Shah, had also registered a NGO and started her social activities. In recent interviews Paras used to accepted all the wrong-doings of his prince-days and promise that, he has changed himself and will not repeat such mistakes again.
The current incident might ruin all the efforts of the royal family to restore their popularity in the public.
UPDATE: Nayapatrika writes that the event occurred on Saturday (which can’t be independently verified). Nayapatrika further writes – Paras told, “You were the behind ending Royalty. Now, I will end you!” before opening fire. Paras fired a total of 7 rounds in the air.
Screeshot from Nayapatrika news:
UPDATE 2
Kantipurwrites – “The resort management dismissed the shooting report, but did confirm that there was a verbal altercation between the former royal and the Chaudhary couple that night.”
UPDATE 3
Nagariknews has published a press statement sent by Paras.
The other day, I accompanied one of my good friends to a financial institute to sell a concept for a television commercial (TVC). The client suggested showing money or gems as a part of the concept. My friend’s logic was not to show money in the advertisements of banks or financial companies. He said, that will have negative impact on the mass and will not generate result, as expected. This got me thinking. Why not? After all, it is all about money.
In the eastern side of the world, people are shy to talk about sex but, at the same time, they are busy generating more babies compared to the western world. Asia has more than 60% contribution to the world’s 6 billion plus population out of which, China and India combined contribute 2.5 billion. People in the western world are open and freely talk on sex and ideas associated with it. How come their population is a lot less compared to those who believe that sex is a taboo? Continue reading
It’s a common phrase and everybody must have heard it – “it’s all in the blood”. You are born with it, wealth, name, fame acting etc. My question is, is it?
Whoever said this line must be the one who was not paying much attention to the surrounding or, may be living in a very narrow circle and does not know what the real truth is.
Let’s talk about acting here. Let’s talk about Bollywood and pick one top actor of the 70s – Hema Malini and Dharmendra. Both were the superstars of their time. Their daughter Easha is not doing that well in the movie industry as her mother did in her time. Hema Malani was raw in the industry and was not trained and polished to enter this line and she was not from the movie family background either. Easha should be doing a lot better than her parents because she has blood with good gene running on her body not only from one superstar but superstar parents. They were well known for their good work on the screen. Lookwise, Esha is also identical to her mother. Continue reading
