Programs
Solar Cinema :
Solar Cinema At Your Doorstep
Solar cinema at your doorstep is a cultural event of a cinema screening at public places in various locations from the rural villages to the cities of Nepal. It brings the cinema to an unusual place.
The concept is simple; an event of cinema screening is scheduled in a particular location in collaboration with local authorities, communities, and clubs. The appropriate movies (local movies, documentary films, or Nepali movies) informative video clips, discussion panelists are selected for the event. A banner, flyers, and posters are distributed for informing the people via social media, home visits, and public announcements.
On the cinema evening, solar panels charge a battery. A banner promoting the solar cinema night is fastened in the center of the village or city. A screen is tautened between two houses or two trees. Simple cinema equipment, such as a projector, a video player, and a speaker is installed. At dusk to announce the beginning of the movie night, Nepali folk music is played on the solar cinema equipment and solar-powered multi-colored lights are turned on. At this point, villagers/audience begin to gather for the movie night. A slide-show about the work in other villages begins the movie night presentation. Afterward, with a warm welcome, one of the team members holds a speech about the solar cinema project and explains the evening’s program. The solar system works properly for the full four hours allowing the complete Solar Cinema program to be shown: 1) music 2) slide-show 3) information clips 4) 1 to 3 short-movies (from their own-village or other villages) 5) 1 main film 6) music. After the movie, the audience has an opportunity for Q/A about the film crew’s/panelist's experiences and the topic. After the film ended the Nepali music would be turned on once again accompanying the people’s walk home. The main objective of this program is to promote capabilities of cultural expression, cultural exchange, and solidarity.
Film Workshop
Solar Cinema Nepal provides youths a film workshop. A short theoretical and technical introduction is given to a group of five or more interested. One of the team members, a filmmaker, introduces the locals to the medium of film. For theoretical shooting instructions, the differences between takes, scenes, and sequences are explained. The movements of the camera as well as the various ways to frame a take are illustrated through an instructional print-out, the presentation of a short movie, and with the camera. The different ways to connect sound with the image (voice-over, music, inserts, etc.) will be demonstrated through a short-movie. Afterward, the technical equipment (sound, camera, wires, and tripod) and the importance of selecting a nice background and suitable places for interviewing are explained. After the film crew has finished providing practical training about how to handle the equipment, the first test shooting begins. After the division of works, personal training is given to every person who is involved. The film crew starts shooting, assisted by the Solar Cinema team. After around two to three days of shooting, the editing process starts with the director and the local crew contributing their ideas on storytelling, selecting a title, aesthetic parts such as music, backgrounds, and so on. With the support from local people, a short movie is produced.
Local Film Production and Discussion
Solar Cinema Nepal provides youths an opportunity to discuss local issues through the medium of film. It is largely left to the participants to decide how to implement their ideas into a film, including choosing the topics. Through a film-making training in each village, participants receive all the necessary tools and methods to come up with a movie that deals with their local issues. The only requirement we provide for selecting the topic is that it should be relevant to as many people within the village as possible. The film should focus on a single topic and its context. The different suggestions for the topic being discussed with the local film crew and checked for suitability for a short-movie. After the discussion, a short concept of every topic is worked out and one will be chosen. The topic, its contextual links, and possible realizations including the narrative (storyline) are discussed and worked out more deeply with the support of Solar Cinema Nepal.
Open Air Cinema and Discussion
Open Air Cinema is a cultural event of a cinema screening organized every month at popular public places in the Kathmandu Valley. Its objective is aware the city people about local happenings; giving a platform to locally produce a short movie to a large audience in the city. The movies are content-rich as well as informative and thus are open to their content. Along with this, the project invites professional Nepalese filmmakers, cinema artists, technicians to participate in cinema discussions. It aims to connect the filmmakers, artists, and cinema technicians with the audience of their experiences, issues, feelings, and works. The main objective of this project is to increase the capability of cultural expression through local movies and films. The cinema evening is free for all. If you are looking for your movie to reach wider audiences, contact us. We bring your movies unusual place.
Solar as a Sustainable Energy :
Promoting renewable energy program
Solar Cinema Nepal promotes solar as a sustainable source of energy in the country through cinema screenings, discussions, films (best practices, policy & benefits), training (repair, maintenance, and safe use), and technical demonstrations (installation, generate & utilization). Solar Cinema Nepal establishes itself as a role model for producing and utilizing solar energy; an alternative source of energy generated from the solar system in its every program. Many youths, students, and community members will get a chance to learn/inspire from it. The objective of the program is to promote sustainable sources of energy including solar and other renewable resources of energy in Nepal. Besides this, the informative movies, success story movies, discussion and dissemination of relevant information regarding alternative renewable energy's policy, benefits, and grant via Solar Cinema's major programs are one of the major cross-cutting themes to achieve the objective of the project.
Research, Development and Advocacy :
Building a local museum program
Building a local museum in a school/community/public space is a social campaign of Solar Cinema Nepal to attract and engage youths, students, teachers, community members for collecting, documenting, and preserving the locally available knowledge, practices, skills, artifacts & materials. The main objective of this program is to promote, preserve, and transfers locally developed culture and development activities from one generation to another or from the community to school and vice versa. Such activities will encourage the community and school for creating a dialogue between communities, foster mutual understanding, and enable young people to engage with diverse cultures within their context.
The concept is simple. Local youths/students/school or community collects the available local archives, materials, relics, and pictures, etc. founded in a particular community. The area of collection is based on a collection of loved ones around the collector's community and home. Then, a team engates for documentation of the collected materials. Then, a room-like space is given the shape of a museum. The collected materials are kept for demonstrations. This project is designed especially for community schools in Nepal. The project supports community and school from the collection to regulating the local museum to foster lifelong learning and sustainablity.
Digitalization and digital safety workshop
The project provides a basic workshop on digitalization workshop; a basic set of skills and understanding as such capturing an image, video-filming, recording and text writing (introducing digital gadgets, their function, handling skills, and guideline), editing (software and its handling methods), the process of documentation (artifacts), internet and digital media (introduction to digital media) that moves together in both theory and practice. The specific workshop will also provide to the groups of students and teachers according to their interest, need, and working areas.
Besides the digitalization workshop, a digital safety workshop also provides to youths, students, girls, and interested community members. A digital safety workshop incorporates online safety for all, better support, stronger protections, influencing policy, and building our understanding. To achieve this objective, the project prepares several case stories; and awareness-raising films for sensitization. Then, the workshop encourages the local community especially students and youth in the community to producing their own stories into local films. This local film is screened and discuss in a participatory way in the community.
The workshops aim to empower the youths, students with the capability of handling digital gadgets and the internet safe and responsible way.
Mini Nepal
Mini Nepal (खल्तीमा नेपाल) 'Khalti ma Nepal' in the Nepali language, is a digital archive of Nepal that intends to provide a platform to get access to reliable facts, information, and uniqueness of Nepal in terms of the topography; flora, and fauna; birds and fowls; ants and insects; arts and artifacts; agricultural practices and the yields, language and dialects; and many more.
Mini Nepal - Khalti ma Nepal is a concept created and designed to provide one platform to get access (to collect, upload and download) to every bit of Nepali resources in detail from the past to the present, from every corner and core of Nepali life under one roof and a one click.
We believe that Khalti ma Nepal will play a significant role as a bridge to connect the present to the past lives through our collected genuine materials from different aspects of Nepali life.
Therefore, its activities are more inclined towards collecting & persevering those valuable items/ materials /uniqueness which is used to be a part of Nepali life and on the verge of extinction with the arrival of modern technology & the modern lifestyle.
Thus the Khalti ma Nepal is putting its best effort to gather all those uniqueness in one pocket, easily accessible from anywhere in the world to explore and unfold Nepal a land of diversity.
How Solar Cinema supports Mini Nepal/ Khalti ma Nepal? Read more
Cultural support to the education: localize the learning
Cultural Support to Education is a support-based program designed for establishing two-way cooperation, interactions, and discussion between school, students, family, and community as a whole to foster lifelong education. This project supports community schools, teachers, and students for localizing learning activities. To localize the learning activities, the project enhances skills and ability on ICT, implement various techniques and innovative practices to corporates community wisdom, skills practices, and values into classroom learning activities. Multidisciplinary learning, multi-languages learning, learning from the community are the key methodology used in this project. In the end, we expect this project connects to the sustainable value chain of Khaltima Nepal.
It aims to support the schools to eliminate gaps between home, community, and school and is to promote solidarity for accessing learning environment to students both inside and outside of the school.
The major paradigm of cultural support to education is guided by the philosophical and theoretical aspect of "school as a community". The project's activities encourage to intersect students, teachers, community members, and parents to articulate their values, norms, skills, feelings, ideas in pedagogical activities to learning outcomes.