Growing up in Nepal, Deepak Rauniyar didn’t have many opportunities to watch films. The first time he went to a movie theater, he was 13 years old. Instantly, he was hooked on the art form.

While he was interested in the medium, he noticed early on that few people on the screen or behind the scenes looked like him. Films weren’t reflecting the problems in society he noticed growing up.

“I came into filmmaking to bring a side of the story that I wanted to bring onto the screen that felt important for me, and was not being told,” Rauniyar said. 

Rauniyar directed and produced multiple films set in Nepal. His most recent film, “Pooja, Sir,” is a detective thriller based on real events in Nepal.

The film follows a queer detective named Pooja, played by Asha Magrati, who is married to Rauniyar and frequently collaborates with him. Pooja is sent to a town to investigate the kidnapping of two boys. However, as Pooja investigates, she finds growing political unrest and violence.

As a light-skinned detective, Pooja works to solve the case while seeing firsthand the protests and discrimination the Madhesi community faced. The movie explores the relationship between light-skinned people and dark-skinned people in Nepal, among other tensions.

According to Rauniyar, “Pooja, Sir” is inspired by the relationship between him and Magrati. They wanted to create a bridge between the communities and show others around the world what many people in Nepal are going through. Rauniyar knew that as a Madhesi director, he had a responsibility to tell this story. 

“We hope this film becomes a bridge between communities, since so much discrimination stems from not knowing or understanding one another,” he said. “Racism, colorism, homophobia, and misogyny aren’t just issues in Nepal. They’re universal challenges, and painfully present here in the country I’ve called home for 14 years.”

“Pooja, Sir” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August. It was featured in the Busan Film Festival in October, and will premiere in the United States on Nov. 16 at the San Diego Asian Film Festival.

“I feel proud that I get to share the emotion that I was going through, and also feel glad that it has resonated [with] other people,” Rauniyar said. “It’s one of the things I really loved in this profession: that you can make a film somewhere far, far away, and then you travel around the world screening it, meeting people, and [it] still connects with them.”

Now an associate professor of the practice in film and television at Boston University’s College of Communication, Rauniyar hopes to work with students from different backgrounds to help them tell their stories, too. Filmmakers, he said, have the opportunity to provoke conversations about issues in society across the world.

“I want my students to get to recognize themselves, why they’re making a film in the first place, and what this medium means for them,” Rauniyar said. “[I want] to help them recognize their voice and their reason to be in filmmaking, and be conscious about the world that we live in.”