It's high noon. Perfect for showdowns. Kollywood superstar Rajesh Hamal stares down a gang of ne'er-do-wells. They charge towards the fearless hero who demolishes them with his bare hands. (Later, when the effects are put in, the sound of fist meeting chin will be 'dishum-dishum'.) A crowd has gathered on the sets of Jetho Kancha, a new movie being filmed in a tiny village on the western outskirts of the city, to see Nepal's favourite leading man in action.

There is take after take of the carefully choreographed fight till the director, Daya Ram Dhakal, declares a print. He is satisfied with the day's work and tells us, "I am convinced this movie will bring new perspective to Nepali cinema." After hearing the barebones of the script, it's more likely this will be yet another utterly forgettable celluloid inanity on a growing heap of unremarkable masala movies.

Look out for yet another happy ending preceeded by a lot of uneven fist fights, florid damsels being chased around pine trees, a villain or two and their entourage plunging to their gruesome deaths, plus the comic relief breaks and song-and-dance sequences set amidst the backdrop of Nagarkot hill. Vintage Kollywood, in other words. The Nepali audience better brace itself for more of the same: a formulaic plot and suspension of disbelief.

It's not as if we can't do better (see, \'Unforgettables\') and it certainly isn't the case that the viewers are not ready to accept more cerebral cinema, even with the masala mix. Kollywood used to produce an average of 40-50 films a year, more than any other country in South Asia except India's mammoth Bollywood dream machine. But for the most part, it's quantity over quality.

Recently, cinema hall owners have begun to demand a qualitative revolution in Nepali films. They are playing hard ball, saying if they screen only Hindi movies they won't run at a loss. What's left unsaid, but tacitly understood by insiders, is that Kollywood will face very hard times without their continuing support.

The insurgency has already taken an indirect toll on the industry-film production has halved. The number of films made every year has plummeted to 10-15. Unlike India, there is no print rental system in Nepal to act as a safety net for investors. Prints for Hindi movies are priced according to the actors and the pre-release hype, and cost an average of Rs 50,000 per week. But Nepali movies lack distributors: the producer usually doubles up for this role. And cinema halls don't pay a single paisa for rental.

The real fly in the ointment is that producers, who invest upwards of Rs 5 million on a single film, can recoup their investment only through ticket sales-50 percent at a time. The other half goes to the hall owners. With the rise in pirated movies and the spread of cable TV, people watch new Bollywood releases at home. Consequently, there is a drop in sales soon after the opening week. On the other hand, new Nepali films like Sukha Dukha, Miteri and Afnopan run successfully for weeks, pulling 60 percent of the audience.

The producers are now adamant to get more, at least 58 percent, of the sales revenue. At loggerheads with hall owners, they stopped their films from being screened for the past 40 days. This has led to the first major dissension between the two groups in Nepal's 52-year-old film history. Sunil Thapa, a veteran actor told us: "This is really sad. I've worked in the film industry for 27 years and realise now that hall owners never really cared about Nepali films. They are just after money." The Nepali Film Producers Association (NFPA) say the producers are the good guys and the bad guys are exploiting them. Actors, technicians and directors all support who they regard as the good guys.

Rajesh Hamal, Nepal's highest paid actor, believes there's more to the matter. "Money is not the issue. This is about creating an atmosphere to give a respectable status to the industry. I'm sure this strike won't last long," he said. Popular actress Melina Manandhar (pic, right) is worried about the overall impact. "This conflict is giving our industry a bad name," she said.

Uddhab Poudel, owner of Gopi Krishna-Nepal's largest multiplex-is in a dilemma. He has been made the mediator in the conflict between producers and cinema hall owners. His comment to us was carefully worded not to show any bias: "We will sort this out as soon as possible. This is not just about money but promoting our Nepali film industry." The NPFA says that several hall owners are slowly beginning to show their support for the producers.

Kathmandu has 40 of the nation's 1,100 cinemas. Fifteen that were dependent exclusively on Nepali films have closed down after the strike began. Bigger venues are feeling the pinch too but don't seem willing to reach a compromise. "The owners are not ready to accept that the lack of Nepali films is affecting their business. No matter how bad the films, people still like to watch them," says Naresh Poudel, vice president of NPFA.

Whether the film producers and hall owners reach an agreement or not, the audience has moved on. "Unless we go beyond aping Bollywood, we will never be able to expand the film market. It's time to take the risks of bringing originality to our approach," says new wave film director Nabin Subba.

Meanwhile, serious filmmakers have not really shown any keen interest to actively involve themselves in the tussle between the two parties.

Tulsi Ghimire, another versatile director, says the reason why the industry doesn't receive respect is a combination of low quality films and a less than satisfactory cine-environment. He dares to voice the unthinkable: "Do we really need a Nepali film industry?" He believes that if Nepali films were of high quality, the hall owners would have no choice but to screen them. "A film should be a permanent asset. Most of our filmmakers have little knowledge about how to turn films into part of our national heritage," he says.

The future of Kollywood looks bleak.Not even a supposedly undiscriminating Nepali audience will deign to watch some of today's movies after a few years in the archives. Filmmaker Tshering Ritar Sherpa concludes: "It's high time we created a niche for ourselves. We have to prove ourselves."

Unforgettables

Despite Kollywood\'s prolific output, only a handful of Nepali movies have withstood the test of time. Satya Harischandra (1950) earned the distiction of being the first movie in the Nepali language-even though it was shot, produced and released in India. It was directed and scripted by DB Pariyar, a Nepali living in India. It took another 14 years before Aama appeared in Kathmandu's halls.

Perhaps the most beloved of all Nepali movies is 'Maiti Ghar' (1966), the feature largely credited with establishing the national film industry. Today, this movie based on the novel by Lain Singh Bangdel, is regarded as a masterpiece and part of our national film heritage.

Maiti Ghar was privately produced by Yogendra Jha and Nara Shumshere Rana. Directed by BS Thapa, it starred Mala Sinha and CP Lohani.

Prem Pinda (1992) was a bold production, vastly different from mainstream commercial cinema. Scripted on the romantic drama by one of Nepal's greatest dramatists, Bal Krishna Sama, Prem Pinda received good reviews from critics here and abroad, but the audience did not warm up to it outside the capital. Director Yadav Kharel's vision should have set a new trend among filmmakers, but it didn't.

More recently, in Numafung (2002), innovative filmmaker Nabin Subba wanted to prove artistic films with a purely Nepali element can put the nation on the international movie map. Numafung is in the indigenous Limbu language with English subtitles, and it is currently doing the international circuit through Europe, having won an award at the 9th Vesoul Film Festival in France.

Mukundo (2002) is a rare offering that attempts to reinvent the genre. Director Tshering Ritar Sherpa explores the true story of an innocent woman accused of being a witch and subjected to a painful exorcism by her superstitious community. The atypical movie broke every norm of commercial Nepali film with horrifying scenes delineated with sharp realism. Mukundo received critical acclaim at film festivals in Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Canada and India.

Escapist clones
VIJAY LAMA

For a long time we excused the Nepali film industry's deficiencies, saying it was in its infancy. Then it went into pimply adolescence during which it thrived on copying Bollywood. Now, it has attained a certain maturity with creative young directors who have come up to offer original ideas.

One could say that in terms of quantity the industry got a great boost post-1990 with the explosion of film-making. Till then, Nepali movie-goers were treated to feature films produced by the Ministry of Information. With private producers entering the fray, it set out on a new growth trend. From up to 10 films a year before 1990, the numbers shot up to 50 films a year by the mid-1990s. This rapid growth witnessed the entrance of lots of new faces with eager enthusiasm to boost the industry.

New production houses along with new directors, actors, actresses, technicians, storywriters and music directors arrived with fresh ideas and approaches. Finally, one could make a living acting in Nepali films, you didn't have to moonlight as a bureaucrat! As viewership grew, the industry became self-sufficient without having to rely on foreign technical support.

What the films lacked in originality they more than made up for with Nepali oomph. For the audience, which had grown accustomed to the glamour and glitz of Hindi films, it was a treat to watch a film in our own language, with our Himalaya as a backdrop, tackling our own contemporary social issues. So what if they were escapist and clones of Bollywood?

But the novelty started wearing off and the audience got more sophisticated with the variety availability on cable at home. The industry failed to move B-grade Bollywood musicals. Nepali filmdom also showed signs of complacency, with pampered celebrities throwing tantrums and becoming indisciplined. On the technical side, using a 16mm format and blowing it up later to 35mm for public viewing reduced the quality of the projection image. The Nepali film industry has yet to adapt to the times.

These days, every other person from the Nepali cineworld, be they actresses, directors, or technical crew, expresses dissatisfaction with the way things are run. The security situation has meant that attendance at the box office has plummeted, reducing the number of films being made. Producers are losing money, some have gone bankrupt. Then there are constant internal squabbles within the industry. The high-handedness of the exhibitors further eroded the morale. Their exorbitant charges didn't make it worthwhile to invest in films anymore.

But all is not lost, a new generation of talented and creative artists are coming up, and sooner or later the audiences will go back to theatres and the industry will rebound.

Vijay Lama, an airline pilot, is also an actor.