News

Nepali filmmaker Min Bahadur Bham’s journey to make Berlin competition title “Shambhala” was arduous but an ultimately rewarding one.

Bham’s 2012 short “Bhansulli” debuted at Venice. His debut feature “Kalo Pothi” won the Fedeora best film award at Venice Critics’ Week and became Nepal’s official Oscar entry. It has been a nine-year process to bring “Shambhala” to fruition since then.

The filmmaker says that after “Kalo Pothi,” it took him a long time to write the script of “Shambhala,” which went through 45 drafts. He also wanted to experience the global labs, markets and residencies that he hadn’t on his first feature. These included Busan’s Asian Film Market, Cannes Cinefondation Residence and Locarno’s Open Doors. When those were done, finding the right cast and locations took a while and once those were finalized, Covid-19 struck.

“Shambhala” – a mystic, sacred realm in Tibetan Buddhism, also an area of significance in Hinduism,...

Line-up includes new titles from Yosep Anggi Noen, Hussein Hassan, Ash Mayfair and Hu Jia.

Busan International Film Festival (Biff)’s Asian Project Market has unveiled the 29 projects selected for this year’s edition of the financing and co-production event (October 6-8).

The line-up includes Silah And The Man With Two Names, the new project from Indonesian director Yosep Anggi Noen, whose latest film The Science Of Fictions will premiere in competition at this year’s Locarno.

Other projects of note include Black And White Photo, from Nepali filmmaker Rajesh Prasad Khatri, which received development funding from Biff’s Asian Cinema Fund...

The second feature from Nepal’s Min Bahadur Bham, “A Year of Cold,” has been offered up for co-production at Locarno’s Open Doors Hub. The director’s coming-of-age debut, “The Black Hen,” hit Venice Critics Week in 2015, taking the Fedora Award. It became the first Nepali film to premiere at that festival– and was Nepal’s entry in the 2016 Oscars race.

Nepal-based Shooney Films, who produced Bahadur Bham’s debut as well as Rajesh Prasad Khatri’s “A Curious Girl,” a Grand Prix winner at this year’s Berlinale Generation KPlus, is back to produce “A Year of Cold.” The company is also developing Abinash Bikram Shah’s “Season of Dragonflies,” which scored the Cnc Prize at Locarno’s Open Doors Hub in 2016.

A female-driven survival road movie, “A Year of Cold” evolves against the backdrop of the world’s Himalaya roof and a strong patriarchal, rural environment. The...