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Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival 2018 comes to an end
Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani’s A Thousand Girls Like Me won first place in the international category, as the 2018 Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF) came to a close. The award comes with a purse of $1500.bookmark
Bibhu Luitel
Published at : December 12, 2018
Updated at : December 30, 2018 14:10
Kathmandu
Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani’s A Thousand Girls Like Me won first place in the international category, as the 2018 Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF) came to a close. The award comes with a purse of $1500.
Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbo’s The Next Guardian, and Niklas Kullstrom and Martti Kaartinen’s Eastern Memories stood second and third respectively. Similarly, the best film awards in the national panorama fiction and non-fiction categories went to Avinash Bikram Shah’s Tatini and Bidhya Chapagain’s Marisakeko Manche. This year, KIMFF’s short film competition, under the theme of ‘Travel is an attitude’, was won by Sujan Gautam for his film, Me and My Endeavour.
Munmun Dhalaria’s An Uncertain Winter grabbed the best film award in the mountain film category while Prasuna Dangol’s Dolpa Diary was the winner in the adventure film category. Shenang Gyamjo Tamang’s Supermonk won the people’s choice award.
The 16th edition of KIMFF showcased a total of 72 movies, out of which 26 were made by Nepali filmmakers and the remaining by filmmakers from 31 countries. This year’s theme for the festival was ‘Women move mountains’, where fiction, documentary, short films and animation were shown. The festival, which had a grand opening where audience members struggled to find seating spaces, saw dwindling numbers on the final days of December 10 and 11, being weekdays.
“No matter how large the audience, it encourages us that they appreciate our efforts,” said Basanta Thapa, who has been the chairperson of the KIMFF organising committee ever since its inception. “That’s what keeps us going,” he said.
One of the most beloved films in the four-day event was the 23-minute-long River Crossing by Sudarson Karki. The film comprised of footage captured by Swiss geographer Toni Hagen during his travels across Nepal in the 50s and 60s. Crossing rivers and tributaries on foot, alongside boats and water buffaloes, led Hagen to pioneer the construction of suspension bridges in many places of the country. The curated footage was nostalgic and illuminating, showcasing the hardships of river crossings in mountainous terrain before the advent of proper bridges.
Although the audience was small, they were appreciative and polite, taking part enthusiastically in the Q&A sessions. Thapa said that the festival audience was growing each year, along with widespread appreciation for his team’s efforts and the efforts of the filmmakers who work long and hard on their films.
Any educational institution willing to show some of the films showcased in the festival to their students will be provided copies for free, Thapa added.
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