Nepali actor in Hollywood, Jaswant Dev Shrestha, has won the Best Leading Actor award in the Accolade Global Film Competition. The award was awarded to Shrestha for his role in the short film, ‘The Treason’. In addition to the best actor award he was also awarded Award of Merit for script writing.
Those were awards in addition to a number of awards other film festivals including:
Winner of Best Actor in Leading Role in Blissfest333 Film Featival 2014, Denver, Colorado
Winner of Best Audience Award in Blissfest333 Film Featival 2014, Denver, Colorado
Winner of Best Audience Award in New York International Independent Film festival, 2013
A news about a Nepali actor, Shri Krishna Shrestha, starting a business named “Kollywood Planet” left me thinking – is the Nepali movie industry Kollywood?
Although, Shri Krishna Shrestha’s business doesn’t seem much related to the Nepali movie industry, I have a feeling, he does want to represent the Nepali film industry. The name, Kollywood, seems to be inspired by the combination of Kathmandu and Hollywood. But, when I checked the name in Google, there was no reference of Kollywood being related to Nepali (or Kathmandu) film industry, at least, not on the first page.
That means, either we have to forget about the name “Kollywood” to represent our movie industry or, make it more popular by using it more frequently. In this context, let us review what Hollywood is and, what names are inspired by Hollywood:
In the modern time, Hollywood has become an iconic name to represent the US movie industry. The success of Hollywood movies has inspired other film industries to nickname themselves with Hollywood-inspired names.
Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, United States (yes, it’s not a movie industry in itself, as believed popularly). The place situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles, got it’s cultural identity as the center of movie studios and movie stars when movie making activities increased in the early 20th century.
A new Nepali movie K Yo Maya Ho? directed by Sudarshan Thapa is releasing in Shrawan. The promo of the movie got good responses from the viewers and is expected to do good business. Reasons? Here are two of them:
It is a second venture of Sudarshan Thapa and also he had commited that this movie is not a copied movie like his previous one Mero Euta Saathi Chha. He had confirmed that this movie contains totally fresh story of four youngsters.
Music of the movie was expected to be good and finally it has got very good response too as Sudarshan and Sugam’s first movie Mero Euta Saathi Chha.
I wrote about Sweta Lamichane back in Februry of 2010. It is good to see the beautiful lady featured in this week’s Saptahik weekly. But apparently, Sweta is not too much happy about the portraying of her as the ‘Hollywood star’ in the article.
Sweta’s clarification in her own words:
Since I can’t read Nepali, I had to have someone else read the Saptahik to me. I would like to clear up a few mistakes that were made.
Yes, I am a working actress, but I’m not a huge Hollywood star. I have done a few movies, commercials, and television shows. In fact, I did all of my training in Hollywood, got my SAG eligibility, and then moved away. It wasn’t until I moved that I started to book bigger roles. All of the movies that I have speaking roles in are independent films. These films only go to film festivals and you can’t find them on the shelves. Currently I’m working on a web series, I’ve completed three movies (will only appear in film festivals), and I’ve done a direct TV commercial campaign. I’m also in school for esthetics and make-up artistry. In addition, I’m recoding an album that will release at the end of this year. Thank you time and attention and Thanks for all the support!
Sweta has done a good job in Hollywood and she has made us proud by her skills over there. Now, I am also impressed by the humbleness she has shown.
It was an incident when I went to watch a movie in Kumari Cinema. During the interval, when I was having coffee with one of my friends we saw a group of guys aged 18-22. They were were there to watch a Hindi movie.
One of the guys showed the poster of a recently released Nepali movie ‘Mann Manai Man Paraye’ and said, “Why all Nepali movies have got same type of posters and story? Always action and same actors?” Another replied, "Our country is poor, so Nepali film industry lacks the technology Hollywood and Bollywood is blessed with. Nepali film makers have to work with limited technology. Or else our movies will also be better like Hindi and English ones." I felt good to hear the positive views of the youngsters about Nepali films.
Editor’s Note: This is the final part of “Who loves Nepali Movies?” article series.  This however is not a complete picture of Nepali theaters – there are a lot more to be written about. If we choose to publish more articles on the related theme, we will update this article in the future and, add the links to the new articles.
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Who loves Nepali movies? we do!
And, there are a lot of our friends, our visitors to this blog – they all love Nepali movies very much. Based on the love of the viewers, a lot of Nepali movies are being produced/released every month. At the same time, everybody agrees that the quality of the movie can’t be compared with Indian, Bollywood movies or English, Hollywood movies. Nepali movies have a limited market and our producers have limited resources in terms of producing movies. Not having a single shooting studio in Nepal explains how poor we are in terms of the infrastructure and resources to produce ‘good movies’. But, everybody admits: with such a limited resources we have witnessed some ‘very good’ movies and, that is something to be proud of.
We started this series to analyze if the theaters are treating Nepali movies fairly. Big Cinema, a theater operating on Indian investment announced not to screen Nepali movies accusing – Nepali movies do not have any quality. If that was the case why did they start the business in an immature market? Said that, we are not against some preferential business. They are free to compete in the free market. At the same time, business logic says that they also need to satisfy their client – Nepali people.
Big Cinema has no emotional attachment to Nepali movies. Theaters owned by our own Nepali citizens have emotional attachment with their own creations (most of them are producers too). But, it is a sad truth that they also prefer foreign movies to Nepali movies.
Fact Check Analysis
Big Cinema – You should learn to love Nepali movies if you want to do business in Nepal.
Guna Cinema – Heights of discrimination between Hindi movie and Nepali movie viewers.
Gopi Krishna Movies – Nepali viewers treated with negligence – discouraging the high class Nepali to watch Nepali moives.
QFX Central – Nepali version of Big Cinema. It should learn to love Nepali movies.
After we published the screenshots and details on how hdnepal.com is doing the similar business as that of the site being run by Kasaju brothers, the site has removed the reference to the movies it was selling.
The front page of the site is redesigned and reference to movies is completely removed. Here are the comparison on how they have changed the layout of the site:
Arrest of Kasaju brothers on the charges of distributing movies illegally in Nepal has raised some issues previously considered off-limits in Nepalese contest. It is believed that Nepali people can’t afford to purchase Hollywood movies legally and the only way they can watch is by illegal means. After the arrest of the owners of cybersansar.com and givemehd.com, the sites are now offline and people operating similar businesses are reconsidering their business practices.
While searching, I found a similar site, offering similar movies and designed by the same company owned by Kasaju brothers. The website hdnepal.com, is still online and it also has similar information and services to that of givemehd.com. According to the site, the service is provided by Lokesh Oli and the physical office is located in Babar Mahal, kathmandu.
Sweta Lamichane is the first Nepali woman to join the US Marines and probably the first Nepali actress in Hollywood. She sure is doing great in the US and making us proud. Her IMDB page has her bio-data and her acting career details. We wish her all the best in her desire to win an Oscar.
News about her is spreading like fire in Nepali news sites (almost all of them copied from Kantipur). It started with her coverage in Kantipur newspaper. Sweta announced in her facebook page:
Sweta Lamichhane I will be featured in the Kathmandu Post on either Friday the 29th or Saturday the 30th. Extra Extra Read all about it! Thank You Sajag Rana & Keshav Koirala!
Her achievements so far include leading roles in Destiny, a New York Film Academy production and in the short film Shoot ‘em Up, which will be pitched with Disney Channel. She has featured in MTV’s Freedom Writers and has also worked in TV shows like ER, Greek, and Glee.
