Of the people, for the people

In mountainous mid-west Nepal, the sparsely populated villages of Rukum and Rolpa districts are cut off from the internet. Television is rare and the residents have likely never watched a film on the screen. But later this month, when a travelling cinema project arrives in the region, the inhabitants of these parts won’t just be watching any film, they’ll be watching themselves, their villages and their lives play out in full colour before them.

Beginning in early March, the project, led by two filmmakers, will showcase films made in the region, to the people of the region, in an effort to rejig the traditional relationship between documentarians and the documented.

“Usually in documentaries or ethnographic films, there is the practice of going to an area, shooting a film and showing it to international audiences,” said Matjaz Pinter, an anthropologist and filmmaker, who along with independent filmmaker Eva Pivac conceptualised the idea. Filmmakers have occasionally taken their creations back to their subjects, but just not that often. German Michael Oppitz filmed Shamans of the Blind Country (1981) in Rukum in the late ’70s, which profiled the faith healing practices in the region. He later brought back the film to the people.

Pinter and Pivac hope to emulate that tradition rather than confining their work to the film festival circuit alone. “It’s the story of these people, it’s a story they have to tell the world with the filmmaker, rather than the filmmaker telling his story,” said Pinter. “The filmmakers are at the service of their story and it is their duty to take it back. Not just extract something and let it float around outside.”

For the large part, however, this has not been the prevailing practice in the documentary world, he says. “For them it is not that important to take it back to those remote places,” said Pinter. “But it is more important to show it to audiences and get awards or recognition.” The Oppitz film is one of the four films on the schedule.

Pinter and Pivac will also be screening their own film, Takasera , an account of social change in the area, and shot in Takasera village, one of the venues. Pinter’s focus on the area stemmed from an earlier interest in the Maoist movement. The media coverage he felt had largely spotlighted the State’s point of view, and so he set about to rectify that. “What about the perspective of the people?” he asked. “They were betrayed by the revolution and abandoned. Their story was neglected.”

The other two films that will be screened are by Nepalis: Journey to Yarsa by Dipendra Bhandari (2011) and Namkah(Bhumya)Parba , by Hikmat Singh Rokamagar. Pinter and Pivac are collaborating with the Kathmandu-based Sattya Media Arts Collective for this venture, and the screenings will last eight days, with two films being shown in each of the four villages over two nights each.

The team set out earlier this week by journeying to the district headquarters at Libang, about a 20-hour bus ride away from Kathmandu. They will be trekking through the region, moving from one village to the next, carrying the equipment themselves, on foot. In all, they expect to reach more than 2,000 people through the screenings which will be held in Thawang, Takasera, Maikot and Musikot.

The budget for this undertaking, $1,300, has been crowdsourced and will be used to cover transport and other logistical expenses. Though the villages are cut off, regular power supply won’t be an issue, because there’s a hydroelectric project in the region. The residents are looking forward to the screenings. “They’re very happy to have such an event,” said Bobby Thapa, project coordinator of Sattya Media Arts Collective, which organises public screenings across Nepal. “A screening of this kind on a big screen has never happened before.”

The entire effort itself will be filmed and edited in the region with the collaboration of the residents. “They are not just objects but have a chance to become part of the process,” said Pinter. The open-air screenings will be followed by discussions. “We also hope to see how cinema and the visual arts can impact progress and development in the region,” said Thapa. They likewise hope to go to other remote regions of the Himalayas to take the films to the people living there.

Bhavya Doreis a Mumbai-based journalist

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