Kathmandu: No film from Nepal will be participating in the 93rd edition of the Oscar Awards to be held in the United States next year. Nepal’s International Feature Film Selection Committee has decided not to send any film for this year.
A statement issued by the committee said, “While reviewing the two films received by the committee on Thursday, it was decided not to send any film from Nepal for participation this year as it did not meet the criteria set by the Oscars.” Nepal’s International Feature Film Selection Committee had requested the filmmakers interested in joining the Oscars to submit their films by September 15.
According to the same information, ‘Aama’ directed by Dipendra K Khanal and ‘Sarita’ directed by Sergio Baso had applied for participation from Nepal. The award, previously held in February, has been postponed for two months due to the Corona epidemic. According to the new date, the Oscar Awards will be held on Sunday, April 25 next year at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. Due to the epidemic, Oscar had changed some rules for participation.
In the changed rules, there was a flexible provision that even a film that could not be released due to an epidemic could participate. In previous years, it was a rule that any movie should be released in a hall and run for a week. However, this year, the film that could not be released in the hall was also allowed to participate in the Oscar competition. For this, the film concerned had to submit a letter to the Oscar Committee of Nepal suspending the release of the film from a government-recognized cinema hall.
Nepal had been sending movies to the Oscars since 1999. Nepal, which had been sending films year after year till 2006, could not send films for the next few years. Since the release of ‘Sungava’ in 2013, Nepal has been continuously recommending films.Nepal has an eight-member International Feature Film Executive Committee chaired by Bimal Poudel.
The members of the committee are Laxminath Sharma, Pradip Upadhyay, Rajendra Shalabh, Raju Vikram Thapa, Lokendra Parajuli, Samipyaraj Timalsena and Chiranjeevi Guragain.