Women are often at the centre of Nepali films. Why are men still telling most of their stories?

Filmmaker Prasuna Dongol recently shared her observations from a film pitch program in Kathmandu, noting a room brimming with energy and teams ready to present. However, she counted twelve men on the organizing team and observed no women mentors among them. Most of the projects pitched that day, she wrote on Facebook, were stories about women.

Dongol stated that while stories should be told across diverse experiences, she was troubled by the lack of depth, research, empathy, or genuine engagement in many of the pitches for women's stories. The core issue, she added, was seeing all-male panels and predominantly male gatekeepers deciding which women's stories would be told. "If we are still standing on stages in 2026 and seeing all-male panels, all-male organising teams, and predominantly male gatekeepers deciding which women’s stories get told,” she questioned, “then perhaps we’re not as far along as we’d like to believe.”

This disconnect is a long-standing structural problem within Nepal's film industry, affecting everything from writing rooms to funding decisions and festival selections. The gatekeepers have largely remained unchanged, but the gap between who tells the story and whose story is told has become increasingly visible. At the Chalachitra Lab pitch event, this gap was starkly apparent on stage.

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Stories should be told across experiences.

The evidence is also visible in the films themselves. The recent social drama "Lali Bazaar," directed by Shivam Adhikari and focusing on the exploitation of women from the Badi community, has achieved significant box office success and sparked serious conversation. However, the film's core creative team included no one from the Badi community. Similarly, "Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi," a 2024 drama about a marginalized Gandharva father, became the highest-grossing film in Nepali cinema history, yet its writing team also lacked representation from the Dalit or Gandharva communities.

While films like these are often received as sincere efforts by filmmakers who care about their subjects, and organizers of events like the Chalachitra Lab cite genuine intentions to broaden access and support filmmakers, there's a critical distinction. Caring about a subject and possessing the structural insight to represent it fully are not the same. In rooms where stories are shaped and funded, good intentions alone are insufficient without diverse perspectives and lived experiences.

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If we are still standing on stages in 2026 and seeing all-male panels, all-male organising teams, and predominantly male gatekeepers deciding which women’s stories get told, then perhaps we’re not as far along as we’d like to believe.