Blue Film will get all the Awards: Prakash Thapa

Code named as ‘Old Tiger’, Prakash Thapa is one of the pioneers of Nepali Film Industry. He started his career with ‘Manko Bandh’ under Royal Academy and later paved the way for the commercial films with blockbusters like Sindoor, Jeevan Rekha, Santaan and Kanyadan. He is famous for the commercialization of Nepali Cinema at the same time has been accused for entering Bollywoodish style of movie making in Nepali Cinesansar. Even the actress in his initial films like Jeevan Rekha & Sindoor was Meenakshi (from Indian Cinema).

In an quick rendezvous with the old tiger, he started justifying all of his allegations posed by the media and his co-workers.
On the first allegation;

Some eight years ago, he was accused of partiality in an award show where he was the main judge. He awarded non popular movie most of the awards instead of commercially successful ones.

He simply tactfully brushed away the subject by saying; “Commercial success is not everything for the movie to be awarded any recognition. If Bishowjyoti runs a blue film (an adult film), definitely it will run more than 5 years and make millions of rupees. Does that mean I should award Blue Films ?”

Bollywood influence upon Nepali Cinema.

I was one of the ‘Saat Hindustani’ playing along with Amitabh Bachchan during my initial days. I literally learned everything from Bollywood during my learning days. From directors, script writers and actors, I was hugely influenced by their narration and its execution on the screen. Definitely, that influence would appear on the screen when I make the movie. I don’t make movies just for money. Nor do I make movie just for the sake of bringing out the existing problems in the society. I learned very well to craft the social problems along with human emotions in the form of the entertainment.
From Sindoor to Kanyadan, you can clearly see the voice of women being raised with my every movie. At the same time the message is being transmitted in a form of entertainment, which I believe is the most effective medium.

Prakash Thapa likes to get things done in his terms. Once during making of the song for his movie Manko Bandh, he didn’t like the lyrics given to him by great poet Madhav Prashad Ghimire. He said on the face of the poet without any diplomacy; “Sir, I didn’t like the lyrics. Could you please rewrite in the way I like ?”. Next day, Madhav Prashad Ghimire came with ‘Phoolako Thunga Bagara Gayo…‘ song, which was instantly accepted by Thapa.

Prakash Thapa had his own style of movie making, which till date every other movie seems to be following. Revolving around women centric theme, with loads of emotional quotient, melodrama and action has become basic recipes for every Nepali Film. It’s been more than 40 years, Nepali movie makers have been using same roadmap formulated by Prakash Thapa. Thapa himself thinks as the society has changed drastically in past few decades, so must the movie makers and their movies must change.

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