Framing Nepal on The Global Stage

This research contributes to the emerging study of international co-productions and their impact on smaller film industries, focusing on the underexplored context of Nepal. Despite a growing interest in global film flows, most academic attention remains fixed on dominant industries such as Hollywood, Bollywood, or select East Asian markets. Nepal's film sector, by contrast, operates at the margins, shaped by limited state support, poor distribution infrastructure, and reliance on foreign partnerships. This study explores how co-productions influence the visibility, agency, and global positioning of Nepal's cinema. Through qualitative research, including twelve in-depth interviews with Nepali filmmakers, producers, and cultural professionals, the study investigates how filmmakers navigate creative and operational decisions in co-productions. The findings suggest that while co-productions open doors to funding and visibility, they also introduce conditions that shape content and limit narrative autonomy. Filmmakers often adjust their storytelling to meet the expectations of international funders and festival circuits, which tend to prioritize themes such as poverty, trauma, or conflict. These adaptations help secure funding but can narrow the diversity of stories that reach global audiences. The research also reveals how global platforms like Netflix or Amazon rarely invest in Nepali content due to the country's small market size and limited digital infrastructure. Even when local films appear on these platforms, they often remain invisible, unpromoted, undubbed, and without marketing support. This aligns with existing theories about structural gatekeeping, media asymmetry, and platform-driven visibility. While Nepal's industry continues to operate through informal networks and personal credibility, this research highlights the pressing need for formal support systems. The absence of co-production treaties, tax incentives, or national film funds forces local filmmakers to rely on patchwork solutions. Yet, despite these constraints, the research captures the resilience and ambition of a generation of Nepali filmmakers committed to reaching global stages on their own terms. Overall, this thesis provides insights not only into the mechanics of co-productions but also into the lived realities of cultural negotiation in a resource-limited context. It extends theories on global media flows (Thussu, 2007), platform power (Poort, 2021), and informal distribution (Lobato, 2012) to a rarely studied national cinema. It also brings Bhaskar's view about how uncovering deeper structures can inform social transformation into light. While the study offers rich, grounded insights, limitations include the absence of foreign producer perspectives, a small sample size, and a limited focus on gender dynamics. Future research could explore comparative cases in other emerging markets or delve deeper into sectors like animation and documentary filmmaking in Nepal. This study lays the groundwork for understanding how global collaborations unfold in lesser-known film industries and what is at stake when storytelling travels across borders.