Conscious cinema

I believe in the power of cinema as an art form to help people understand one another’s predicaments and our shared experiences of life and death.

“Conscious” cinemas – works that are drawn from personal experiences, from the life we have lived, and from the world around us, and from which matters to us, inspires me. The great filmmaker Robert Bresson puts it very well, “Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.” That has always been my goal.

I’m of dark-skinned Madhesi ethnic group of Nepal. I grew up in an environment where at least once a day, because of the color of my skin, I was asked when I snuck into Nepal (from India). Besides, we are subject to jokes in TV serials and Cinemas – what we wear, how we speak or how dark we look! Light skinned actors from the Brahmin-Chhetri caste group makeup their face black to perform us, speak like we are a bunch of retarded.

I chose the cinema out of frustration and anger. Nice years later, things have changed a bit for me.

I have made two features of my own, and working on the third feature, and producing several others. My films have screened throughout the world, at the Berlin, Venice, Toronto, Locarno, Rotterdam, Busan, Sydney, Golden Horse Taipei, Edinburg, New Directors/ New Films film festivals. New York Museum of Modern art has run two of my features for a weeklong screening.

Filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s works inspired me to become a filmmaker. Where is my friend’s house? To be particular. I like the simplicity of the work of Kiarostami, at the same time are very complex and deep. Robert Bresson and Yasujirō Ozu are other filmmakers who influence me. I’m very much aligned to Bresson’s philosophy, “make visible what without you might never be seen.” Bresson also focuses on visual storytelling rather than putting all pressure on actors, which I like a lot. Ozu is all about observation, the camera looking up at the actors from the ground, I love it.

I’m perusing IMA MFA with interest to expand my field of works, and to be able to teach. I love teaching. Meeting a diverse group of young filmmakers in becoming and learning their stories and life, has been very rewarding.