Oscar nominated Nepali movie

1.Himalaya

Himalaya  is a film directed by Eric Valli  on 1999 and was produced by France-based corporations. It was the first Nepalese film to be nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the 72nd Academy Awards.

Himalaya is the story of villagers who take a caravan of yaks across the mountains, carrying rock salt from the high plateau down to the lowlands to trade for grain.Himalaya is a movie set story against the backdrop of the Nepalese Himalayas. At an altitude of five thousand metres in the remote mountain region of Dolpa. An annual event, the caravan provides the grain that the villagers depend on to survive winter. The film unfolds as a story of rivalry based on misunderstanding and distrust, between the aging chief and the young daring herdsman, who is both a friend and a rival to the chief's family, as they struggle for leadership of the caravan.

The film is a narrative on the both traditions and the impermanent nature of human struggle to retain and express power in the face of the gods. "The gods triumph" is the call that echoes at the end of the film and expresses the balancing of karmic destinies. The extreme environment of the Himalayas is magnificently contrasted to the delicacy of humanity and the beauty of Tibetan culture.

Himalaya was shot in widescreen over nine months on location in a region that can only be reached on foot, with all but two characters played by real chiefs, lamas and local villagers. Director Eric Valli has lived in Nepal since 1983 and is also a photographer and author. His work is regularly published in National Geographic, GEO and Life magazines.

The film depicts not only the life style of the upper Dolpo people of the mid western uphills of Nepal but also their traditional customs, for example celestial burial.

2.Muna Madan

Muna Madan is a short epic narrating the tragic story of Muna & Madan with the title''a son of chhetry touches these feet, not with disgrace,A man is greater by deeds, not by caste''  written by Nepalese poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota and one of the most famous writter in Nepali literature. Just before his death in 1959 he made his famous statement, "It would be all right if all my works were burned, except for Muna Madan." It is the most commercially successful Nepali book ever published.

Muna Madan is based on an 18th-century ballad in Nepal language entitled Ji Waya La Lachhi Maduni (It hasn't been a month since I came).The song, which is popular in Newar society, tells the story of a merchant from Kathmandu who leaves for Tibet on business leaving behind his newly wed bride. The wife is concerned for his safety as the journey to Tibet is filled with hardships, and she pleads with him not to go. But he leaves despite her protests. When he returns home after many years, he finds that she has died.

Muna Madan describes the life of a man (Madan) who leaves his wife (Muna) and goes to Lhasa to make money, and while returning he becomes sick on the way. His friends leave him on the road and come back home saying he has died. The story also shows the life of a poor woman who suffered much without her husband and later dies because of grief. Finally he is rescued by a man who is considered to be of lower caste in Nepal. That is why it is said that a man is said to be great not by caste or race but by a heart full of love and humanity.

When Madan returns to Kathmandu after regaining his health, he discovers that his wife is dead and becomes grief-stricken. Madan comes to realize that money is of no value at that point. In this poem, Laxmi Prasad has written that greatness is not measured by one's race, but by one's deed.