THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE

KALO POTHI

Original title (Transliteration of Nepali): Kalo Pothi
Title in Nepali: कालो पोथी
English translation of Nepali title: The Black Hen
Title in Anglophone world: Kalo Pothi: The Black Hen
Year of release: 2015
Director: Min Bahadur Bham
Writers: Min Bahadur Bham, Sujit Bidari and Abinash Bikram Shah
Country of Production: Nepal
Genre: Drama
Length: 1 hour 30 minutes
Language: Nepali
Availability: A DVD with English subtitles has been released. A digital file is also available, with optional English subtitles, from which the screenshots below have been taken.

Principal boys: Khadka Raj Nepali (below, left) as Prakash, and Sukraj Rokaya (below, right) as Kiran

Synopsis
Set in 2001, against the backdrop of the Nepalese civil war, two boys, Prakash, a Dalit, whose sister joins the Maoist insurgency, and Kiran, the grandson of the village headman, attempt to retrieve a hen that Prakash's father has sold.

The sheer brilliance of this film lies in the way in which the director is able to portray Nepalese society in microcosm through this simple story of two boys' friendship and their joint quest.

The film won the Critics Prize at the 72nd Venice Film Festival in 2015. It was both a commercial and critical success in its native land, and the highest grossing Nepalese film ever in overseas markets.

A good review of the film, which also explains some of the historical background of the movie, is available to read on the Film Matters magazine online here. (Note, however, that in the 'Summary' section the reviewer muddles up the two boys, and it is the darker-skinned Prakash who is the Dalit, and Kiran who is high caste.)

The trailer for the film can be viewed on Youtube here.

Production photos

Screenshots