KATHMANDU, Nepal – Waiting for Mamu, an award-winning documentary film by Reframed Pictures will be shown the first time outside of the US at The City Museum in Kathmandu. Thomas Morgan, documentary filmmaker and creator of Mamu, returned to Nepal to show the film to the children who stories were featured and who are in the care of 2012 CNN Hero of the Year Pushpa Basnet.
Morgan will also present Pushpa and ECDC, the organization she founded at age 21, with a donation from the Frank Denny Estate for $75,000, bringing her closer to building a permanent home for children whose parents have been incarcerated in Nepal. Basnet currently houses 44 children who live and attend school under her organizations care.
Waiting for Mamu has garnered many awards including the Audience Award at the Traverse City Film Festival and the Audience and Humanitarian Award at the Sedona International Film Festival. The film is backed by Reframed Pictures, a company founded by Morgan, Academy award-winning actress Susan Sarandon and Jonathan Bricklin to create and support films that feature human rights and social justice issues with a specific call to action. Reframed Pictures is a member of Creative Visions Foundation’s Creative Activist Program. Learn more: www.creativevisions.org.
To make a tax deductible donation to ECDC go to waitingformamu.com
About Waiting for Mamu
Imagine, at five years old, you are sentenced to prison for 13 years. You have no access to your family or friends, to an education, to the outside world or to society.
In some places, if a parent is sentenced to prison and they lack a guardian for their child, the child is imprisoned with the parent. Many of these children go to prison at a young age and are released to the world at age 18, with no life skills or support system, knowing nothing of the world but what they experienced in a jail cell.
A documentary short film, Waiting for Mamu, will share the story of what it means for a child to grow up in prison and yet find hope in unlikely places. During a prison tour as part of her university studies, Pushpa Basnet encountered a young girl who tugged at her shawl and looked up at her and smiled. Pushpa promised the young girl’s mother she would be back to get her. Seven years later, Pushpa, known as Mamu by the children, runs an organization that gives kids the chance to be kids during the day and have an education. Some return to the prison to be with their mothers at night, while some stay in her orphanage.
This film will capture the hope of a child to be free from prison, even if just for the day, to find a childhood, and to find Mamu.
“One of the most beautiful and hopeful stories I’ve ever seen. From the moment Thomas first told me about the project, I knew I had to do anything I could to help him get it made.”
Morgan Spurlock
“Most people see an injustice, get upset, do a short-term something and move on. Because to do more would mean interrupting their lives. Pushpa dared to forge a new path, against all odds, to give incarcerated children an education and a future. To give them love and build their self esteem. To give them hope. She does all this without any claim to their future. I believe she has taken the definition of mother to a new level. Her story is an important one that should be told and I’m honored to have had the opportunity to help make that possible.”
Susan Sarandon
Source: http://www.ballantinespr.com/News/MEDIA_ALERTS/waitingformamu.html