Asmita Shrish

Asmita is a Nepali filmmaker working in fiction and documentary. Her short documentary Auntie Ganga a portrait of an elderly Gurkha couple living in Britain has played in 15 festivals around the world including in Britain and Nepal. It was selected by the British Council to play on National Old Age Day, and won an award from Human Rights Watch Film festival in London.

After Auntie Ganga, Asmita was commissioned by BFI and The Arts Council of England to make a follow-up project, Little Nepal, following retired Gurkha soldiers in Britain. She also produced the short documentary Kaloo School (2013) exploring the challenges of education in the mountains of Afghanistan. The film was premiered at the International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam in 2013 and was winner of the One World Human Rights Film Festival, Prague, the Human Rights Film Festival Bir Duiyo Kazakhstan and many other festivals around the globe.

As a fiction filmmaker she co-directed Chandra, the moving story of the journey of a boy and his grandfather through a devastated Kathmandu. The film was funded by Chinese giants Youku Originals and Heyi Pictures for 20th Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Masters and Newcomers Project, and has already been selected for a number of festivals including Locarno Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, São Paulo International Short Film Festival, FLICKERS Rhode Island Film Festival and Fribourg International Film Festivals.

Asmita completed her Computer engineering degree from Kathmandu University at age 19 and pursue her creative career by doing MA in Visual arts and Animation from the University of Gloucestershire, took a certificate in documentary from the National Film and Television School, and was one of 8 directing fellows in Asian Film Academy 2014 nurtured by auteur Béla Tarr.