CINEMA-NEPAL: Unfolding the Drama of Development

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Binod Bhattarai

KATHMANDU, Jun 6 1995 (IPS) - A decade ago, a development project introduced women from a remote village in Nepal to video as a medium for making their voices heard.

The women were taught to use the equipment to send video-taped “letters” to a lawyer based in this capital city explaining the problems they encountered and seeking legal redress.

But the legal aid project was soon labelled a “successful experiment” – and promptly scrapped. It was a perfect recipe for frustration: women motivated to do something, trained in production techniques, and having the requisite equipment, but deprive of funds.

This tale of a project gone awry and other anecdotes relating to an integrated development scheme implemented in western Nepal, will now form part of a docu-drama ‘Guaar’ or ‘Help’ to be co- produced by Nepal Television (NTV) and the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation (FBC).

The film, to be marketed jointly by NTV and FBC as a 10-part television series, will have well-known actors from Nepal and Finland playing the role of foreign consultants and Nepali government officials.

The villagers themselves will enact their real life stories in a script conceived by the Nepali husband-and-wife team of film makers, Deependra and Beena Gauchan. The Gauchans have won world- wide appreciation for their earlier film ‘Ujeli’, a docu-drama on child marriage.

“Guaar is realistic. It will project both the pains of under- development as well as the funny side of development,” says Leena Vihtonen, the Finnish producer of the film. “It is to be shot here, but similar stories could be taking place in other developing countries as well.”

The film will revolve around a Finnish actress who will play an expert trying to help out Nepali women. It will touch on her ideas about development plus her personal story of frustrations in adapting to rural living and the important lessons she learns from the villagers in Nepal.

It will also touch on some of development’s typical mismatches — such as the gap between donor perceptions and recipients’ anticipations.

‘Guaar’ forms part of a NTV-FBC cultural project already underway for a year. The Finnish aid agency FINNIDA has provided 200,000 dollars to purchase equipment for this project that seeks to set up a cultural archive by recording Nepal’s rich and unique folk traditions.

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