Hope Without a Future

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This documentary looks at Nepalese society at the time the Maoist revolutionaries called a ceasefire and allowed the first elections to be held to replace the power of the monarchy. The film follows two young Nepalese youth as they try to raise their young son in circumstances of poverty. One of the parents had been trafficked and the other in an abusive situation. This film also examines forced labour (labor), child exploitation and structural poverty.

"One family's dream of a better life.
One country's hope for a better future."

Hope Without Future? introduces Raju and Mamina, a young Nepalese couple who, like many children in Nepal, spent their youth without parents and living at great risk. Now both in their early twenties, they have each made it through many personal hardships - poverty, abuse and drug addiction - to find one another and love. They have worked hard to build a life together and start a family and believe that they can have a future.

Yet their hopes for a better life are reliant on Nepal finding political stability. After 13 years of insurgency, at a cost of over ten thousand lives, the Maoist party finally came to the negotiating table. After two failed attempts, an election was set to take place in April 2008 under the threat of violent clashes and bombings. It was hoped the election would create a constituent assembly to write the country’s first constitution, elect a Prime-minister and, most importantly, remove the monarch and in doing so turn the country into a republic. It would be a country governed by the people for the first time.

The film closely follows the election process and the key candidates as voting takes place, discovering what is needed to turn a country away from severe poverty to development. For Raju and Mamina, like the majority of Nepal, the outcome of the elections would be the best hope for an end to the continued years of struggle and insecurity and a new course to a more prosperous future.

Written and Directed
Awards: Silver Ace Award, Las Vegas Film Festival, Best Documentary, Reelheart Film Festival, Golden Palm Award, Mexico International Film Festival, Best Biographical Documentary Mountain Film Festival, Runner-up Best Documentary, New Beijing International Movie Festival