Kathmandu, Nepal

Photographer: Mark Edward Harris

Year of Submission: 2016 (Educators Edition) 

The hundred students at Kathmandu’s Oscar International College of Film Studies have a dream – to make a name for “Nepaliwood”, and take their country’s film industry out of the shadow of their giant neighbour India’s Bollywood. Even the earthquake that shook Nepal on 25 April 2015, killing more than 9,000 people, hasn’t changed that. The school was closed that week, and none of its students or staff were injured. But its main four-storey building was destroyed, and classes are now held in temporary structures put up on its campus. Later that year, student Min Bahadur Bham screened his feature film “The Black Hen” at the Venice International Film Festival. And others are starting to pick up awards at international film festivals around the world. “Our students are creating a new wave in the Nepalese film industry,” says Binod Paudel, the college’s principal and acting coach.