ASIF Shah is not a new name in the country’s television and media scenes. He is a singer, has directed a number of hit music videos, has worked as video jockey, and is quite a familiar name in the advertisement world. Shah directed a short film in 2008. Sonam won an award in the video competition You Are No Exception, organised by USAID Nepal that year. The short film—built around the central HIV AIDS theme—won Shah numerous accolades. The director is now all set to make his big screen debut with Karkash. The film is slated (tentatively) for a May release, and its first look and its trailer are set to be launched by the end of this month.
The film’s script, screenplay and dialogues have all been co-written by Shah and Abhinash Bikram Shah. The original soundtrack for the film has been composed by Karma band and Susan Prajapati is its cinematographer. Karkash has been produced by G21 Productions and its director says that it is a dark comedy. “The film has a lot of dark humour in it,” he says. “It starts with its characters in a bad situation to begin with. The condition only gets worse as the film progresses. It is the in-between incidents and situations that create the humour.” Karkash stars Satya Raj Acharya, Raymon Das Shrestha and Dayahang Rai, all well-known names in the Nepali film industry. The film also marks the film debut of popular media personality Suraj Singh Thakuri.
The four will be seen playing characters who, while attempting to achieve their goals, find themselves facing several entangling problems. This, the director says, is what creates an entertaining watch for the audiences. “The film is basically about these four members of a music band in Thamel,” Shah says. Other pivotal roles in the movie have been played by Harshika Shrestha and Ragini Khadgi. “I’ve tried to make my debut film entertaining,” he says. “I hope my efforts will be appreciated by the audience.” Apart from the humour and entertainment quotients in the movie Shah says audiences will be quite thrilled to see some of the most well-known faces in popular media in completely different avatars. The actors went through a 20-day workshop before the film’s shooting began. This training will hopefully reflect in the characters they portray on screen. The director himself found the process of making his movie emancipating. “The film was a breath of fresh air for me,” he says. “I used to have to work my way through various reservations, but this gave me complete creative freedom.” The film is still an ‘experimental’ one though and so the director hopes its newness and novelty will be welcomed by audiences. “The film shows the rawness of Kathmandu and we all know that our audience wants to watch a good film,” he says. “The genre is a new one, but that dœsn’t really matter when the film itself is good. I believe I have made a good film with Karkash.”
source: The Kathmandu Post, 12 march 2013
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