Description
It was foreseen.
The ancient Hindu kingdom of Nepal, hidden away in the high Himalayas, has always seemed a magical place to outsiders, a real world Shangri-La. Largely rural, unmodernised and deeply religious, it has a rich history of superstitions and prophecies. One prophecy is of particular interest. Passed down through generations, it tells how the first King of Nepal, Prithvi Narayan Shah, offended a holy man who placed a curse on the King, declaring that his family would only rule for ten generations and then be wiped out in a massacre.
This film will tell the story of how that curse came to pass, and how Nepal continues to reckon with its consequences. In 2001, the popular, apparently dutiful heir to the ancient Nepalese throne, walked into the royal palace and shot dead the King, the Queen and many other members of the royal family.
In the wake of the massacre, the nation was plunged into crisis and confusion. Few were willing to believe that the Prince was behind the massacre, nor predict the chaos that the killing would unleash: within seven years, the country was torn apart by a brutal civil war and the monarchy was abolished. The ancient Hindu Kingdom of Nepal crashed into modernity, reborn as a federal, secular democratic Republic.
For the first time, the film will plot Nepal’s revolutionary arrival in the 21st century, told through the voices of the people who were there as it happened. And the centre of the story is that pivotal night in 2001 – a few minutes on a Summer night when one young man’s desperate spray of bullets in the royal palace wiped out an ancient dynasty and set the nation on a collision course with the modern age.
But in the story of Nepal’s past is also the story of their present – twenty years on, Nepal still reels from the consequences, unable to make sense of the one night that changed everything, and yet unwilling to move forward.
Now in 2022, a new generation of Nepalis are clamouring for change and progress. But in a nation where old rivalries, taboos and whispered conspiracy theories still reign supreme, will modern Nepal ever be able to truly lay the ancient prophecy to rest?