The Game That's Bankrupting Nepali Filmmakers — And Nobody Is Talking About It

There is an open secret in the Nepali film industry that nobody likes to discuss too loudly. Every single year, more than 90 percent of film producers lose money. Not a small amount — in many cases, everything they invested. And while there are many reasons a film can fail, one of the most damaging and entirely preventable causes gets normalized season after season: multiple films releasing on the same day.

It sounds like a minor scheduling issue. It is anything but.

When Screens Are Shared, Everyone Loses

Here is how the math works — or rather, doesn't work. A film opens on a holiday. It has a good story, decent marketing, and real audience interest. But on that same day, two or three other films also release. Suddenly, the available screens across Nepal are split three or four ways. Showtimes shrink. Footfall is divided. And a film that might have earned a healthy return in its opening week is instead strangled by competition before it ever gets the chance to breathe.

This is not a hypothetical. It has happened repeatedly. Last Dashain, three films competed for the same screens. The one before that, three again. And this coming Dashain, at least seven films — Chha Maya Chhapakkai 2, 12 Gaun 2, Jhinge Dau 2, Aa Bata Aama 2, Maharajdhiraj, Paanch Pandav, and Batulo Jun — are all eyeing the same release window.

Not all of them will make it to the screen on that date. A few will pull back at the last minute. But history suggests that at least three will collide — and when they do, the financial damage is real and lasting.

This Is Not Normal. We Just Treat It Like It Is.

After watching this pattern repeat itself so many times, there is a tendency to shrug and accept it as part of how the Nepali film industry works. But normalization is not the same as justification. For the producer who has mortgaged their home, borrowed from family, or spent years saving to make their dream film — a crowded release date is not an inconvenience. It can be financially ruinous.

The question that deserves a direct answer is this: why does it keep happening?

Sometimes, the answer is ego. Two producers refuse to blink. Neither wants to be seen as the one who moved. The result is a standoff where both suffer.

But sometimes — and this is where the conversation needs to go — producers are deliberately misled. They are given inaccurate information about competing releases. They are kept in the dark until it is too late to change course. They are, in effect, used as pawns in someone else's personal rivalry or power game.

If a producer chooses to compete willingly and with full knowledge, that is their decision to make. But if they are manipulated into a losing battle without their informed consent, that is not a scheduling conflict. That is a betrayal.

The Bigger Cost to the Industry

Beyond the individual producers who lose their investments, there is a broader cost that the Nepali film industry cannot afford to keep paying.

Every time a promising film is crushed by an overcrowded release window, a potential success story is erased. Investors grow more cautious. Good stories go unfunded. Talented filmmakers walk away. And the audience, sensing the instability, loses a little more faith in Nepali cinema as a reliable entertainment destination.

An industry that cannot protect its own producers from preventable losses is an industry that will struggle to grow. The talent is there. The stories are there. The audiences are there. But as long as dishonesty and ego continue to govern release strategy decisions, the cycle of producers going under will not stop.

What Needs to Change

The solution is not complicated, even if it requires discipline and goodwill that the industry has so far struggled to maintain consistently.

Producers need better access to honest, verified information about competing release dates before they finalize their own. Distributors and exhibitors need to play a more neutral and transparent role in managing the release calendar. And the broader industry — including filmmakers, trade bodies, and media — needs to stop treating simultaneous releases as inevitable and start calling it what it often is: a structural failure that destroys livelihoods.

No producer should be made a sacrificial offering in someone else's grudge match. No film should be set up to fail before it has even had its opening weekend.

Nepali cinema has genuine potential. But potential means nothing if the ecosystem that surrounds it continues to operate on the basis of ego, misinformation, and quiet betrayal.

The game of bankrupting producers needs to stop. And it needs to stop now — not after the next Dashain, not after the next round of losses. Now.