The organisers of most film festivals come in for considerable flak on their choice of films to screen. Film festivals, after all, are meant to showcase the best cinematic fare available; there is no place there for mediocre, much less bad, films. If one were to apply those measures in estimating the worth of Film Himalaya 1994, the verdict would have to be entirely unfavourable. Most of the fare was bad or indifferent.
But, then, seeking only the best of Himalayan film-making seems never to have been the objective of the Film Himalaya organisers. The key term, instead, was "representative filmmaking". Hence, all manner of films — the good, the bad and the ugly — were deliberately screened, as one organiser said, "…because they are there. We wanted to present specimens of filmmaking on the Himalaya, a random sampling of what is out there."
It is difficult to quarrel with that line of reasoning. Screening of some downright bad films can have a cathartic effect on the sensitivities of committed filmmakers. For instance, when the great film archivist Henri Langlois, of the celebrated Cinematheque Paris, used to randomly screen films for cineastes, showing a Fred Astaire picture right after a Bunuel or a Renoir masterpiece. It was in reaction to films that were largely pitched in the realms of fantasy that Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol and Rivette set out to make a new kind of cinema, which came to be known as the nouvelle vague or new wave.
Given that Nepal has hardly anything like a filmmaking, mu chess documentary filmmaking, tradition to speak of, Kathmandu was an odd venue for the festival. But, conversely, there couldn´t be a more apt one considering that the Kathmandu audience would be the most aware of the people, lifestyles and issues being depicted on the films. Also, there is the hope that the festival will inspire and provoke the latent filmmaking talents of Nepali documentarists. If it does, Film Himalaya ´94 will have been worth the time and the effort.