Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Balendra Shah has congratulated the team behind ‘Elephants in the Fog’ after the film was selected as Nepal’s official entry for the 99th Academy Awards.
Directed by Abinash Bikram Shah, the film will compete in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars.
In a social media post on Sunday, Prime Minister Shah congratulated the director and the entire team and wished them success in their Oscar campaign. “The film’s representation of Nepal on an international platform would make an important contribution to taking Nepali cinema and its identity to a global audience,” he added.
The prime minister also wished the film success in its Oscar journey.
Elephants in the Fog, which is screening in Nepal with the Nepali title ‘Tiniharu’, which means they in English, is currently in its second week of theatrical release across the country.
The film had earlier earned recognition at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened in the Un Certain Regard section.
Director Shah is also known for writing critically acclaimed Nepali films including Highway, Kalo Pothi: The Black Hen and Shambhala.
Elephants in the Fog is set in a village in Nepal’s eastern Tarai, where a community of transgender women lives amid frequent encounters with wild elephants. The film follows Pirati, a transgender matriarch who is in a forbidden relationship with a drum master.
The film also received funding of 600,000 Norwegian kroner from the Norwegian South Film Fund.
