The Secrets of Radha (Subarna Thapa) Nepal. Official Section |

The Secrets of Radha
Subarna Thapa
Nepal. 2022. 95 min

Radha, a young pregnant woman from a village in Nepal, embarks on a journey to find her husband, a migrant worker in Doha, who’s gone missing, but discovers instead an intriguing web of lies, deceit and fraud behind his disappearance and of many others.

RADHA (25), 8 weeks pregnant, lives in a remote village of Nepal. Her husband, BASUDEV (27) left the village with no word about his whereabouts. To avoid the shame of her husband leaving, Radha hires SUNDAR (23), a local YouTube artiste, to mimic Basudev’s voice, time. Everyone in the village is duped into believing this.

SUBARNA THAPA

I’m a Nepali origin filmmaker based in France for 17 years. I graduated in dramatic arts in Paris and took film initiation course in La Femis in Paris. I was funded by CNC-France for my first short film, Malamee (Funeral)in 2008. SOONGAVA-dance of the orchids is my first feature length and the first film in the 60 years of Nepal’s cinema history to tackle the theme of same-sex relationship.

Filmography

MALAMEE (Funerla) short, 20′ – 2008 Nepal/France
SOONGAVA-dance of the orchids- feature 85′ 2012 Nepal/France Submission to Oscar in foreign language category 2014
CHHORA (Son) short, 25′ – 2013 Nepal/France Official selection(wide angle/competition)
in Bushan int’l film festival 2014.
FANKO – Feature, 2014
BATO MUNIKO PHOOL 2 – Feature, 2015
MA – Feature, 2022
THE SECRETS OF RADHA- Feature, 2022

DIRECTOR,S NOTE

When I was 7 years old, I was going back home to my village with my parents in a local bus. At one stop, my father just disappeared. Now I’m a father of two children. Based in France, I often stay miles away from them due to my profession. Sometimes, I asked myself, ” Am I following in my father’ footsteps?”. This film is addressed to the people of yesterday, today and tomorrow who have gone through similar personal, social and economic crisis. I’m always interested in telling a story which is personal to me.

This project was supported by the Asian Cinema Fund for script development. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, we struggled to shoot this film between the lockdowns. It is an independent film where the actors and technicians came along as co-producers and gave their full support to make it happen. The entire film was shot in Nepal with local cast and crew, in the hills of midwestern Nepal and the capital city of Kathmandu.