KATHMANDU: Filmmaker Abinash Bikram Shah says Elephants in the Fog should not be seen as a singular breakthrough for Nepali cinema, but rather as a reminder that the country’s stories have always existed in abundance — even if global attention has not consistently followed.
The film is the first from Nepal to be selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, the prestigious sidebar that runs alongside the main competition for the Palme d’Or. It is among 15 titles competing for honours including the Un Certain Regard prize, Best Director, and the Jury Prize at the festival, scheduled to take place in France from May 12 to 23.
Shah, however, is cautious about framing the selection as a watershed moment.
“I’m hesitant to say this film opens the door for everyone else,” he said in an interview with PTI. “Nepal has always had hundreds of powerful, complex stories, and they have always been here. What hasn’t always been consistent is the space and visibility for those stories to reach a global stage. So I see this selection more as a signal to the world to stop looking past us.”
He added that he hopes the film’s presence at Cannes will encourage Nepali filmmakers to remain rooted in their own voices. “I hope it gives them the confidence to believe that our specific, locally rooted stories can travel globally without needing to reshape them to be heard.”
Reflecting on the moment, Shah said the experience carries both pride and pressure. “There is a moment of personal pride in achieving something you once only hoped for, but there is also a certain weight that comes with it. The pressure, for me, is more about the story and how honestly I have told it. It feels like a quiet tug-of-war between pride and pressure.”
For Shah, Cannes is not unfamiliar territory. His short film Lori previously received a Special Mention at the 75th edition of the festival, becoming the first Nepali short to achieve the recognition. Following that experience, he set himself the goal of returning with a feature film — a promise that eventually led to Elephants in the Fog.
“There were many moments when I questioned whether I was capable of doing it,” he said. “At times, the promise felt more like pressure than motivation. But the urgency of the story kept returning. What was happening around us, socio-politically, made it feel necessary.”
Set in a small Nepali village on the edge of a forest inhabited by wild elephants, the film follows Pirati, the matriarch of a Kinnar community, who dreams of leaving her life behind in pursuit of a “normal” existence with the man she loves. Her journey is disrupted when her daughter goes missing, forcing her to confront both personal longing and communal responsibility.
The cast includes Pushpa Thing Lama, Deepika Yadav, Jasmine Bishwokarma and Aliz Ghimire.
Shah said the emotional foundation of the film stems from his own upbringing. Having lost his father at an early age, he grew up closely connected to his mother and the women in his family, which shaped the central mother-daughter relationship in the story.
“I have always seen how deep and layered these relationships can be,” he said. “That understanding is what shaped the emotional core of the film. It is often where we first learn love, conflict and acceptance. In a world that can be harsh and exclusionary, the home becomes the first place where those tensions play out, but also where acceptance can begin.”
He added that grounding the film in this relationship allows its broader social and political themes to remain intimate and human.
On casting, Shah revealed that the process took nearly two years. The team deliberately sought actors from sexual and gender minority communities, alongside new faces, travelling across the country to find individuals who could bring lived experience to the roles.
“We also brought in trained actors from theatre and film backgrounds,” he said. “That balance was important. Non-actors bring rawness and unpredictability, while professionals bring structure and discipline. The space between the two created something grounded and alive.”
Shah also reflected on the thematic overlap in the film between ecological conflict and the marginalisation of the Kinnar community.
“When you look closely, these conflicts are not very different,” he said. “They intersect more often than we acknowledge. The marginalisation of people across caste, gender and identity is deeply connected to how societies relate to land, forests and other living beings. At their core, both come from the same instinct — to dominate, categorise and control what we see as ‘other’.”
Elephants in the Fog is a co-production between Nepali companies Underground Talkies Nepal and Jayanthi Creations, with international partners from France, Germany, Brazil and Norway. It is produced by Anup Paudel and Prachanda Man Shrestha.
(With inputs from PTI)