Published on The Kathmandu Post Daily-
POST REPORT
KATHMANDU, JUN 19 – Phulman Bal, the bureau chief of the Kantipur daily’s Art and Culture section, has just released a 15-minute short film titled Cellphone. The clip was shown at a press conference organised at the Indigenous Film Archive in Anamnagar on Tuesday.
Bal is a seasoned journalist who has worked in the media for over a decade, and he has both directed and penned the script for the short himself. The film revolves around a poverty-stricken Tamang Jhankri family, where the father wants his son to take up the Jhankri tradition, but his son is more interested in other things. After coming across a fellow villager carrying a mobile phone, the son decides he must have one for himself, especially if he is to impress the girl he likes.
Lacking any other alternative, he ends up going to the city to sell his Dhangro—the Jhankri drum—and purchasing a mobile with the money. On returning to his village, he finds that his father has fallen ill, a fact that causes him to regret his decision. “What I wanted the film to convey was the impact of new technologies on rural communities,” Bal says. “The idea that globalisation has crept into even remote areas in Third World countries like ours is something that fascinates me.” He stresses on the fact that technology needs to be made culturally-friendly, being that it is already an inescapable aspect of living in these modern times.
Cellphone has been shot in the Tamang language and subtitled in English and Nepali. It stars Umesh Tamang, Shanti Waiwa and Prem Lopchan, Sonam Moktan among others, in leading roles. Producers of the film include Ngima Pakhrin, Sangey Lama, Chandramaya Tamang and Shanti Waiwa. “I came in contact with Lama and Tamang via Facebook, and it was while chatting online that they requested me to write the script, which I did,” says Bal.
Cellphone is scheduled to be screened at the 6th Indigenous Film Festival on July 13.
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