Despite being geographically far away, many social and cultural transformations taking place in Europe are common across the continents. Witnessing events from migrations to breaking families, societies have been facing similar problems.

This was depicted at the recently concluded fifth edition of the European Union Film Festival Carpe Noctem (Seize the Night) in Kathmandu.

Opened amidst interactions among the top film producers and directors from Nepal and Europe, the fifth European Film Festival showed a number of films on social transformations in Europe.

The fifth edition of the European Union Film Festival was organized by European Union in association with the British Council and the Embassy of Switzerland.  The festival highlighted European culture and lifestyle.

The film festival began with discussions on the film industry. At the event moderated by film critic Sophia Pande, ambassador of the European Union to Nepal Rensje Teerink spoke of the importance of films in promoting culture and depicting the reality of society.

“The films presented in the film festival showed various social problems faced by European societies,” said ambassador Teerink.

At the function attended by Italian film director Donato Totunno, Nepalese film producer, script writer and director Chandra Kanta, director Neelu Doma Sherpa and producer and director Akash Adhikary and documentary director Mohan Rai expressed their views on Nepalese film industry.

Italian film director Donato Rotunno shared his views on challenges of film making. “Although the circumstances and scenarios may be different, film producers and directors all over the world have similar kinds of problems,” said Italian film director Rotunno.

At a time when the volume of Nepalese films has increased, there are concerns over the quality of these productions. “One of the challenges in film making in Nepal is lack of script writers who can write the script with proper concept,” said Chandrakanta.

Producer Akash Adhikary saw there was an ample opportunity in Nepal. “If we produce the films meeting the choices of the audiences, Nepalese film producers do not need to worry about the market. I have produced 12 films in the last one decade, they all attracted quite a lot audiences,” said Adhikary.

Documentary producer Mohan Rai has a different feeling. “The problem with Nepalese films is that they don’t represent the reality of Nepalese society. The script writers need to do more research to develop a good concept,” said Rai. According to Rai, the government needs to provide protection for the Nepalese film industry.

During a week-long festival, 25 films from 21 European countries were displayed. The festival launched with the exhibition of the film Baby (a) lone directed by Donato Rotunno.