Film Shows
The AAS-in-Asia Conference 2025 showcases four documentary films by Nepali filmmakers. These films from the top of the world to the southern plains, from mountain villages to New York City provide a glimpse of the lives of the Nepali people.
Sherpas – The True Heroes of
Mount Everest
Sunday, June 1, 2025
6:45 pm
Hridaya (Manaslu)
This film reveals the work, hardships and lives of the Sherpas on Mount Everest. The film shares the Sherpas’ stories—their emotions and fears during the climb serving as ladders for Western climbers to the top. It follows, over two months, Long Dorje Sherpa, a 13-time Everest summiteer, Norbu Sherpa, the young, modern and educated Sirdar of the expedition, and Ang Nima and his Icefall Doctors as they navigate the perilous Khumbu Icefall celebrating their personal victories but also confronting the dangers of their work when a team member dies on the climb. The film also portrays Pasang Diki, Long Dorje’s wife, and other Sherpa women left behind in the village of Thamo, tending fields and praying for their husbands’ safe return.
Directors: Frank Senn, Hari Thapa, Otto C.
Honegger
Duration: 96 min
Year of Production 2009
Bhedako Oon Jasto (Like
Sheep’s Wool)
Date: Monday, June 2, 2025
Time: 6:45 pm
Venue: Hridaya (Manaslu)
The film is an odyssey in search of an elusive tune, Bhedako Oon Jasto, that journalist Narayan Wagle had been singing for eight long years. When he sings it to Amrit Gurung the lead singer of Nepathya, a popular band, he shows an interest in singing the song, and asks Wagle for the lyrics. Wagle proposes that Gurung revisit with him the Himalayan village where he had first heard the song to get the feel of the environs, know more of the people and the place to write it. For 10 days, Wagle, Gurung, Danu, a band member, and filmmaker Kiran Krishna Shrestha walk the mountain trails in the search of the song.
Director: Kiran Krishna Shrestha
Duration: 56 min
Year of Production: 2003
Blues of Pink
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
6:45 pm
Hridaya (Manaslu)
The transgender communities of the Tarai plains of Nepal are diverse and have a distinct historical and social context. Their culture and practices, their identity and their work all connect them to the rest of society. Shot in the city of Janakpur, this documentary provides a spectrum of transgender lives; from broken marriage to understanding relationship, from the desire to raise a child to not being able to watch the child grow up, from giving blessings to thinking that one’s own life is a curse. In the society where people judge all actions based on gender, how are the actions of transgender people judged?
Director: Grishma Giri
Duration: 30 min
Year of Production: 2019
Diversity Plaza
Date: Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Time: 6:45 pm
Venue: Hridaya
(Manaslu)
Up to 75,000 Himalayans live in Jackson Heights in Queens, the most linguistically diverse zip code in the US and possibly the most diverse urban spot in the world, as nail salon workers and nannies, restaurant and grocery workers, Uber drives and entrepreneurs, trying to find the right balance between their former tradition even as they shape new lives as Americans. Observing the community and culture of the Himalayan migrants, the film captures in verite footage a portrait of different groups of Himalayans still connected to their homelands even as they look to the future.
Director: Kesang Tseten
Duration: 69 min
Year of Production: 2023
