The Legitimacy Trap: Institutional Sequencing Failure and Policy Reform in Nepal's Film Sector
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.67556/y06gf741Keywords:
co-production policy, film financing, institutional sequencing, Nepal film sector, value chain frameworkAbstract
In recent years world cinema has seen a shift toward digital distribution networks and transnational co-productions, requiring strong institutional frameworks and infrastructure. While Nepal's film sector has seen a strong creative momentum producing commercially successful and critically recognized titles this momentum is sustained by a fragile foundation making it unable to integrate into a borderless contemporary world of storytelling. Using interpretive, abductive case study design, this study conducted semi-structured interviews across Finance Track and Policy Track with multi-disciplinary film workers, policy experts, and industry association representatives in Kathmandu in March to May of 2026, analyzed through (Parc, 2021) institutional sequencing model and (Parc, 2020) value chain framework. Findings were triangulated against primary legislation, Film Development Board (FDB) institutional data, New Film Bill, 2025 and comparative evidence from South Korea, Nigeria, and Malaysia. The research identified five interlocking institutional node failures interacting with each other across financing infrastructure, policy and regulatory frameworks, IP enforcement, co-production capacity, and data governance that reinforce each other in a self-perpetuating cycle designated “the Legitimacy Trap”. Out of seven major findings, some empirical contributions emerged: the FDB budget impossibility, which establishes that reinvestment failure is a structural design feature rather than institutional incompetence. A moral rights inalienability gap, which reveals that standard industry contracts routinely include legally unenforceable waiver clauses unknown to practitioners and the confirmation of (Fang, 2024) “complicit creativity” in Nepalese context as the mechanism through which censorship suppresses creative and commercial output before formal review, all of which reinforces the legitimacy trap. The study concludes that Nepal requires a sequenced institutional reform roadmap beginning with governance preconditions before transparency, financing infrastructure, and international engagement can be addressed.
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