ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Asian Network of Documentary(AND) Fund

2012

2012 Asian Network of Documentary (AND) Fund

LIST Who Will Be a Gurkha (aka. Selection: Who Will Be a Gurkha?)
Category BIFF Supporters Fund
Project Who Will Be a Gurkha (aka. Selection: Who Will Be a Gurkha?)
Director Kesang Tseten LAMA
Country Nepal
Director's Profile Kesang Tseten’s We Corner People won Best Nepali Documentary at KIMFF, 2006 and was selected for New Asian Currents, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. On the Road with the Red God: MACHHENDRANATH won the Grand Prize at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival (2006). In Search of the Riyal, about Nepali migrant workers in the Gulf, was recipient of the Asian Cinema Fund and screened at Busan; Saving Dolma, a Jan Vrijman Fund selection, premiered at IDFA 2010; The desert Eats Us premiered at the Leipzig in the International Competition. Tseten’s screenplay Mukundo, co-produced by NHK/Japan, was Nepal’s entry to the Academy Awards (2001). Tseten studied in India, Amherst College in Mass, USA, and at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in NY.
Synopsis
As a filmmaker with a dispassionate position about the polemics surrounding the Gurkhas recruitment, but fascinated by the empirical, the subject is ideal because of its limited canvas, and thus this observational approach is distinct from how more ‘insider’ Nepali filmmakers or total outsiders might treat it.
I am interested in exercising dispassion and empathy, and in my ability to discern conflict and points of interest and yet of being fair to the subject, keeping in mind peoples’ humanity regardless of who and what they represent or work for, and also of being able to navigate a potentially fractious debate in a way that is fair and yet shows the thing for what it is.
Director's Note
As a filmmaker with a dispassionate position about the polemics surrounding the Gurkhas recruitment, but fascinated by the empirical, the subject is ideal because of its limited canvas, and thus this observational approach is distinct from how more ‘insider’ Nepali filmmakers or total outsiders might treat it.
I am interested in exercising dispassion and empathy, and in my ability to discern conflict and points of interest and yet of being fair to the subject, keeping in mind peoples’ humanity regardless of who and what they represent or work for, and also of being able to navigate a potentially fractious debate in a way that is fair and yet shows the thing for what it is.
Festivals
2012 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam - Feature Length Competition
Still Cut
LIST