# Ancestral Memory Meets AI in Himalayan Drama ‘Shirjara: Song of Grandmother’ at Tokyo Gap-Financing Market

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/ancestral-memory-meets-ai-in-himalayan-drama-shirjara-song-of-grandmother-at-tokyo-gap-financing-market/
- Published: 2026-10-27T23:33:19+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-28T00:36:08+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/film/markets-festivals/ancestral-memory-ai-nepali-drama-shirjara-tokyo-market-1236932531/
- Topics: AI, Art, Culture, Entertainment, Film, Music, Technology

## Key points

- A Nepali Himalayan drama links ancestral stories with artificial intelligence.
- The team is seeking $44,000 to finish the film.
- It hopes to launch at Cannes in 2027.

## Summary

Nepali director Bikash Subedi’s Himalayan drama *Shirjara: Song of Grandmother* has finished principal photography and is seeking final funding in Tokyo, with a Cannes premiere in 2027 as its aim. The film sets a grandmother’s inherited stories against the rise of artificial intelligence, asking what machine builders might learn from ancestral knowledge preserved beyond books and databases.

Shot at about 4,000 metres in Nepal’s Dhorpatan, the film has an 80-minute rough cut and a total budget of $296,000. Its team says 85% of the budget has been raised and spent, leaving $44,000 for colour grading, finishing, a master DCP and a six-minute AI and visual effects sequence; in Tokyo, it is also seeking Japanese co-producers, post-production partners and international sales and distribution.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.