Bhairahawa, April.1: Communication and Information Technology Minister Rekha Sharma has said that the perception of taking film as a luxury should be changed.

Inaugurating a workshop on filmmaking based on biography that kicked off in Bhairahawa from Friday, Minister Sharma said that film should be considered as the basis of nation building and social transformation.

Minister Sharma emphasised that education and messages that could not be provided through other means could be easily disseminated through movies, so it should be considered as a means of social transformation.

Stating that training on making films based on biography is a completely new practice in Nepal, Minister Sharma said that organising such a programme in Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha, was remarkable.

She said that Lumbini is also an important tourist destination of Nepal as a confluence of Magar, Tharu and Awadhi speaking communities.

She also requested the film sector to use Lumbini region as a film shooting location.

Pointing out that the Nepali society has multidimensional characteristics, she said that in Nepal, which is multi-ethnic, multilingual, multi-religious and multicultural country, there are heroes of their own originality within each community, so making biopic movies based on their biographies should be commercialised.

Minister Sharma also said that researching the stories of politicians, warriors, inventors, artists, writers, philanthropists and other personalities and making movies and bringing them to the world market was a very important task.

Biopic films will explore the lives and struggles of the beloved characters of the country and the people and introduce them to the world through movies, provide immortality to historical figures, create an investment environment for foreign investors and help promote Nepali tourism through movies.