BHUMIKA DAHAL
GANGTOK, July 29: Indian Idol III Prashant Tamang’s third Nepali feature film ‘Kina Maya Ma’, which is running successfully in Nepal, would have its Indian premier show at Gangtok on August 27.
This was announced today here by Gangtok based respected filmmaker Chunnilal Ghimire who has directed the movie. This is the first feature film of Channel Ace Productions run by Ghimire who has several telefilms and documentaries under his banner.
“The premier show of ‘Kina Maya Ma’ would be held on August 27 at Vajra cinema hall. Then after the movie will run in Gangtok for some time after which we will take it to Darjeeling and Kalimpong for screening”, said Ghimire.
Prashant, who shot to fame after winning the Indian Idol season 3 reality show, has already two more Nepali feature films to his credit-‘Gorkha Paltan’ and ‘Angalo Yo Mayo Ko’. The latter was released simultaneously in Nepal along with ‘Kina Maya Ma’ on June 24.
‘Kina Maya Ma’ was screened in Kathmandu Valley for three weeks in six theaters and presently it is running at cinema halls at Pokhara, Damak and Birtamore.
Prashant, who in his real-life is a singer, is playing a similar role in the 2 hours, 17 minutes long film where he is a singer from Nepal and falls in love with a girl (played by Sumina Ghimire) from Sikkim.
But, the ‘Kina Maya Ma’ director feels that Prashant has some distance to go before the audience accepts him as an actor than a singer. “He is singer in real life and playing as a singer in the film. 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”, he said.
At the same time, Ghimire asserted that Prashant had not been cast into ‘Kina Maya Ma’ just because of his popularity arising from Indian Idol III. “We did not aim to simply cash on his brand. It was our support to him as we feel that he has been discriminated by major television channels who gave more exposure to other Indian Idol winners”, he said.
Ghimire said that ‘Kina Maya Ma’ has attracted good response from Nepal. “The response from the audience in Nepal has been good and we are satisfied that we have come up with a quality product. We expect even better response from Sikkim and Darjeeling”, he said.
The filmmaker argued that people here should not compare the Nepali films produced from Sikkim or elsewhere with those of Hollywood and Bollywood. “Our films are made on a humble budget. ‘Kina Maya Ma’ had a budget of Rs. 58 lakhs. If the Nepali speaking community don’t want their movies then who will watch the Nepali language movies? People must come and watch the movie whether it is bad or good. Just coming to the movie hall will encourage the local artistes and technicians”, he said.
The film shooting started from September 2 and completed on October 13. Post production was done at Kathmandu.
Ashoke Rai is the executive producer for ‘Kina Maya Rai’. The other local faces in the movie are Rohit Raj Luitel, Timothy Rai, Hemant Giri, Chanchal Lepcha and Nismani Rai.
