Near Nepal’s border with China, a small village sits, islandlike, on a tip of land formed by precipitous slopes cross-cut by tumbling Himalayan streams on three sides. The people who live there call this place “a corner.” A corner, however, is not a dead-end. It may not be a hub, but it can be a place where things turn around. This is the message of Kesang Tseten’s decidedly non-preachy documentary about building a suspension bridge in this remote community and how this is embedded in wider economic, political, ecological, domestic, and spiritual dimensions of everyday life of the villagers who will use it. In this subtle, multi-dimensional film he has distilled the country’s realities into the life of one village, bringing everything into the microcosm: poverty, underdevelopment, Maoism, evangelists, migrant labour, marriage, life and death.

Sceneggiatura / Screenplay Kesang Tseten
Fotografia (colore) / Photography (colour) Siddhartha Shakya
Montaggio / Editing Kesang Tseten, Prem BK, Melissa Hacker
Suono / Sound Prem BK
Produzione / Production Kesang Tseten
Anno di produzione / Year of production 2006
Durata / Running time 50’
Formato / Format miniDV

Kesang Tseten

We corner people won Best Nepali Documentary at the Kathmandu Int’l Mountain FF (2006), shortlisted for the 2nd Prize at Film SouthAsia 2007, selected for the New Asian Currents of the Yamagata Int’l Documentary FF 2007, selected as the inaugural film at the 2nd Bangalore Int’l. FF. On the Road with the Red God: MACHHENDRANATH won the Grand Prize at the Kendal Mountain FF (2006), Mention at the Bilan du Ethnographique, and was voted Best Documentary of the Decade by the Nepal Motion Pictures Association (2005). We Homes Chaps featured at the Film SouthAsia and the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival. He wrote and co-directed Listen to the Wind, a fictional short for teenagers. His original screenplay Mask of Desire, co-produced by NHK/Japan, was Nepal’s selection to the Academy Awards (2001). 2004 he wrote the original screenplay KARMA, soon to be released.