report in The Kathmandu Post, updated June 19, 2023 at 15:25 hrs
The screening of the Indian movie ‘Adipurush’ has been stalled nationwide citing issues of law and order.
Kathmandu Mayor Balendra Shah, on Sunday, had taken to his Twitter and Facebook accounts to announce the metropolis’ decision to bar all Indian movies from screening at cinemas within Kathmandu Metropolitan City.
The move came after Shah’s call to rectify a particular statement used in the film went unheeded.
“Until Monday morning, only Kathmandu and Pokhara had decided to bar screening of the film. Soon other cities–Dharan, Itahari, Janakpur, Dhangadhi, Chitwan–followed suit,” said Manoj Rathi, a film distributor associated with Shree Venkatesh Films, the official distributor of ‘Adipurush’ in Nepal.
The negative discourse around the movie had already affected its business, and now the stoppage of the film’s screening has ended any hopes of recovery, Rathi added.
“If the hall owners themselves do not want to run the show, there is nothing we can do.”
Meanwhile, Nepal Motion Picture Association, the organisation of cinema hall owners, is preparing to seek legal action.
“We are confused as to who holds the authority to stop screening of movies that have been passed by the censor board. Are we allowed to run the movies, cleared by the federal government, or not?” said Bhaskar Dhungana, the president of the organisation. “We are preparing to take legal actions to find a proper solution to this issue.”
https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/06/19/screening-of-adipurush-stalled-nationwide
