Film festivals are supposed to be very happy and colorful occasions. Well, when it falls into the hand of a corrupt regime then it only becomes a source of corruption and mismanagement. Nepal's first national film festival took place on July 2005. At that time, King Gyanendra had total control over Nepal. His supporters had total control over Film Development Board, the organizer of the show. The organizers had royal blessing and did everything they liked. They even brought Dev Anand and Manisha Koirala from Bollywood. At first, three members of the board went to India just to invite some Indian film stars. I guess that they did not know that you can invite stars through telephone and Internet or at least through the Nepalese embassy could work that out. On their visit to India they spent too much money.
Dev Anand was given a special award for his contribution to the Nepalese film industry. The funny thing was that his only contribution was that he 'in promoting Nepal and the Nepali film industry, primarily by shooting his hit film 'Hare Ram Hare Krishna' in the Himalayan kingdom.' Now you can get an idea of how phony the award was. To give you an example of misappropriation of funds I am quoting from Daily India:
"The festival organisers claimed Rs.180,000 from the festival fund in the name of obtaining air tickets for the two stars and three members of their retinue and Rs.3 million for a banquet."
Dev Anand was a friend of the royal family while Manisha Koirala's father was a minister and close alley of King Gyanendra. So, now you can understand that these two film stars had some vested interest to join the film festival and glorify the autocratic reign of Gyanendra. All this happened a year ago. Now, Nepal has a new government and they are digging out the corruptions of the past regime. And this corruption has now come to light.
It is not the first time that celebrities joined hands with bad regimes. What is so interesting here is that after one year this matter has caused a good deal of controversy in Nepal and the names of these two Bollywood stars have come in the media. I guess that Dev Anand and Manisha Koirala did not get any benefit from the corruption but their participation may be considered as unethical as Nepalese people were suffering a lot under Gyanendra.
Do you agree with me?
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I never knew film festivals in Nepal were outright mismanaged and corrupt. Here in the Philippines, most well-known awarding events for movies always have a stint of corruption, and favoritism. The rightful winners don't win. It's only those who have connections with the judges and event coordinators and chairmen have the right to bring home a trophy. Only, the corruption is done through secret deals.
Posted by: nepspeed82 | August 11, 2006 1:47 PM | Permalink to Comment