Team

SUE CARPENTER, Director/Producer

Sue has worked in media and communications for over 30 years and been involved in Nepal and women’s rights for nearly 20 years. A freelance journalist and photographer, she moved into filmmaking in 2013. Her first short documentary, There’s Something About Molly, was the closing film at the New York Dog Film Festival, 2015, and won Best Short Documentary at the Good Dog Film Festival in Sydney, 2016. Her second short doc, Alice and Nana (2016), was selected for the Herne Hill Film Festival 2106. The Wonderful Walk, about the creation of a 40m community mural, was released in 2019. Sue is a founder Trustee of GlobalGirl Media UK, empowering disadvantaged young women through digital media training.

In journalism, Sue specialises in human rights issues in developing countries, which led her to found Jaisalmer in Jeopardy, a charity to save a fortress city in Rajasthan, and to co-found Asha Nepal, supporting trafficked women and girls in Nepal. In 2006-07 Sue lived in Pokhara, Nepal, where she ran the My World, My View photo project, teaching photography to disadvantaged girls, which led to fundraising exhibitions and a book of the same name. That is when she met Belmaya.

BELMAYA NEPALI, Co-Director

CHRISTOPHER HIRD, Producer/Executive Producer

A leading figure in UK independent documentary making, Christo is the founder and managing director of Dartmouth Films, which has pioneered new ways of funding, producing and distributing documentaries in the UK, as well as promoting the work of new and emerging filmmakers.

His many film credits include: Black Gold (2006), premiered at Sundance, selected for Hot Docs, True/False, Human Rights Watch FF, won Best Achievement in Production BIFA; The End of the Line (2009), selected for 15 festivals, including Sundance and Hot Docs Toronto, and multi-award winner, including PUMA Creative Impact Award, One World Media Award; Fire in the Blood (2013), selected for Sundance; Still The Enemy Within (2014), winner of the Audience Award at Sheffield DocFest; In The Shadow of War (2014), nominated for Special Jury Award at IDFA; The Divide (2016), selected for Sundance, Open City Doc Festival, Cork Film Festival; John Pilger’s The Coming War on China (2016).

Cameraman Manas Singh Suwal, Belmaya, Assistant Producer Laxcha Bantawa, Biren