Gangtok show for Prashant film - India premiere to be in sikkim

Gangtok/Sikkim July 29/TT: Prashant Tamang’s third Nepali film Kina Maya Ma will premiere in India with a screening in Gangtok on August 27.

Gangtok-based filmmaker Chunnilal Ghimire said the premiere would be at Vajra cinema hall. “After the movie runs in Gangtok for some time, we will take it to Darjeeling and Kalimpong for screening,” said Ghimire. This is the first feature film of Channel Ace Productions run by Ghimire.

Although a love story, the film has references to the Gorkhaland movement in Darjeeling, the hometown of Indian Idol 3 winner Prashant, who plays the lead role.

If Sony’s talent hunt through the music reality show launched Prashant as a singer four years ago, it also sowed the seeds of a new party that now controls the Darjeeling hills.

In 2007, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha was born after its president Bimal Gurung cashed in on the strong anti-Subash Ghisingh sentiment that swept through the hills during the campaign to help Prashant win the contest.

The GNLF chief had refused to publicly back Prashant even as the entire Gorkha community in Bengal and across the country put its collective might behind the singer.

Prashant won the September 2007 contest and bagged a Rs 1-crore music contract with Sony.

In Kina Maya Ma (why in love), Prashant is a singer from Nepal who falls in love with a girl from Sikkim. According to the director, in the film, Prashant gets stranded in Sikkim while returning to Nepal because of a “strike” in the neighbouring hills, a reference to Darjeeling and the statehood agitation there.

A dialogue then follows: “The people from Darjeeling and the Indian Gorkha community should get justice as it is a century-year old demand.”

Prashant has two more Nepali feature films to his credit Gorkha Paltan and Angalo Yo Mayo Ko.

But the Kina Maya Ma director feels that Prashant has a long way to go before the audience accepts him as an actor rather than a singer.

“He is a singer in real life and plays the singer in the film. But he has not sung in the film as he was out in Europe during the recording. This is his third film and his acting skills have matured. He can act but people still see him as a singer,” Ghimire said.

He said Kina Maya had attracted good response in Nepal. “We expect even better response from Sikkim and Darjeeling,” he said.

The filmmaker argued that people here should not compare the Nepali films produced in Sikkim or elsewhere with those of Bollywood.

“Our films are made on a humble budget. Kina Maya had a budget of Rs 58 lakh. If the Nepali-speaking community doesn’t want their movies then who will watch the Nepali language movies? Just coming to the movie hall will encourage the local artistes and technicians,” he said.