Women in 'New Nepali Cinema'

Presenter:

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Abstract

Nepali films have enjoyed a renewed popularity among its audiences since 2010. These new narratives display a world of male migrants caught in a rapidly urbanizing cityscape or loitering in villages. While their female counterparts oscillate between prescribed gender roles and attempts to become voicing subjects. As an investigation into the place of women in a ‘new Nepali cinema’, this article discusses the filmic imaginaries of femininity caught between worlds of tradition and modernity in contemporary Nepal. It decenters a developmentalist lens through which most gender discourses in Nepal are presented by studying a range of popular Nepali films. It argues that the overshadowing of a critical reading of these films by their box office success highlights a deeply rooted patriarchal problematic already inherent in the functioning of the Nepali state.