Her Story: Telling women’s issues through women’s perspectives
Kathmandu, July 30, 2017: The rainy Saturday evening on July 29 witnessed a full-house of audience at the auditorium of Nepal Tourism Board. 22 young independent women filmmakers from across Nepal had showcased their short movies and documentaries on the occasion of graduation ceremony of HER STORY, a film making workshop they went through.
The short movies and documentaries tackled various issues related to women in Nepal including child marriage, female feticide, prostitution, female political activists, forceful disappearance of people during the civil war, and the stigma of menstruation.
The films were very organic and touched the people, which could be felt from the rounds of applause in the hall after the screening of each film.
The movies gave message for a change. And, made the audience numbering more than 500, to not to keep it in the form of stories only, but start a movement.
“Watching these films, I found it’s not HER STORY, but my story,” shared Deepa Shree Niraula, Chief Guest of the ceremony.
The event also saw questions and answers sessions with crews of these films, where they shared the idea and journey of making the short films.
The short movies and documentaries were prepared as the final assignments of the movie making workshop they had attended in May.
Onion Films Nepal had conducted the workshop with the support of a grant from U.S. Department of State. The girls were selected from a pool of more than 200 applicants. In the weeklong intense workshop, the young women had learned about various aspects of moviemaking and visual communication including script writing, cinematography, acting, editing, and direction with sessions conducted by well-known personalities of Nepali film industry including Manoj Pandit, Abinash Bikram Shah, Reecha Sharma, Gopal Shivakoti, and Subarna Thapa. American filmmaker Shalini Katyayana had also taken a session on how to make impactful movies and documentaries.
“We had a dual goal with the workshop. We wanted to impart visual communication skills to these young women which is in high demand these days. At the same time, we also wanted to promote women’s rights in Nepal through visual media because visual media is the most impactful medium of storytelling. We wanted to bring out the stories of women through the women themselves,” shared Surath Giri, co-founder of Onion Films Nepal and the winner of the grant from U.S. Department of State.
“We are happy to see them apply their best in making these movies and documentaries and we are hopeful that these skills will be helpful for their respective careers. We are also hopeful that some them will continue making movies and telling our original stories to the world,” he added.
Onion Films Nepal has been conducting moviemaking workshops for young people since 2012. It has already trained over 220 young people in movie making and visual communication. Her Story is the only program in Nepal catering to aspiring young female filmmakers.
