Kristen Zipperer, PhD Candidate, Anthropology
Location: Sever 416
CMP Capstone Committee:
Julie Mallozzi
Lecturer on Art, Film, and Visual Studies
Malavika Reddy
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Birgunj in Fragments (2025, 18 min)
Birgunj in Fragments is a portrait of Birgunj, a multicultural border city in Nepal’s southern plains. It foregrounds the textures, contradictions, and everyday beauty of a region historically overlooked in representations of Nepal. Adapting and subverting the city symphony tradition, the film offers a vision of urban life in the years after the country’s 2008 transformation from a Hindu monarchy to a democratic federal republic, an era sometimes called “New Nepal.” In centering a place often marginalized in national and international imaginaries, Birgunj in Fragments invites viewers to reconsider who – and what – is recognized as “Nepali” today.