Have You Seen My Gods?

Amitabh Joshi

2025 / 60 minutes
Nepal, United States
English and Nepali with English Subtitles

Amitabh sets out to locate the stolen gods of Kathmandu, fulfilling his grandmother’s final wish. Prompted by her declining health, a filmmaker returns to Kathmandu, a city of vanished deities and fading rituals. When the Laxmi Narayan statue, stolen in the 1980s, resurfaces in a U.S. museum, its repatriation, led by local activists, becomes a journey he follows through rituals, shrines, and the diaspora. Featuring rare archival footage of Kathmandu from the 1950s and a quiet investigative thread that uncovers the identity of the art collector who acquired the statue, the film unfolds as both a lyrical elegy and a subtle act of resistance against colonial theft and cultural erasure.