Kathmandu, May 13
Kathmandu Metropolitan City Mayor Balen Shah is going to participate in the world-famous Cannes Film Festival. He is leaving for France on Monday night with two advisers.
Mayor Balen is accompanied by his management advisor Kumar Byanjankar and infrastructure advisor Sunil Lamsal. Balen, who is going there at the invitation of Cannes’ Mayor David Lisnard, will spend three days at the festival.
He will also participate in various programmes organised during that time. He is scheduled to meet with Mayor Lisnard and the festival director. Apart from this, he will also participate in the festival’s red carpet and premiere.
A reception is being held at the Multimedia Library in Cannes in Balen’s honour. There will be a bilateral meeting with the mayor and the festival director, but the agenda has not been decided yet.
Balen will also observe the audio-visual content creation chain during his stay in Cannes. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has listed Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, as a ‘Creative City of Film’ in October 2023.
The city of Cannes in France is also a member of the film’s ‘Creative City’. In the invitation letter sent to Balen by the mayor of Cannes, the festival has been mentioned as an opportunity to bring the creative city of the film together along with an opportunity to learn about the audio-visual content chain called On-Air.
The 77th Cannes Film Festival is being held from May 14 to May 25. Although no film from Nepal was selected this year, The Seamless shot in Nepal has been selected in the On Regard category and the Nepali language film Tara: A Lost Star has been selected in the market screening category. Nepali artists and technicians are involved in both these films.