TATTOOED TRUCKS OF NEPAL- Horn Please, 40min., USA
Directed by Ron Ranson
“Tattooed Trucks of Nepal – Horn Please” is an upbeat documentary that celebrates Nepalis and their culture through a vibrant new artform: the paintings on their freight trucks. Set in the context of Nepal’s artistic legacy, the film introduces the talents of self-taught painters, who work by commission in order to share what is important to the trucker. Their subject matter provides a window into Nepali culture and includes truck protection, displays of spirituality, love of family, sports and new and old traditions. Representations of Lord Ganesh, European soccer heroes, Bob Marley and a salute to Avril Lavigne are displayed on these moving ‘canvases’ as they travel Nepal’s dangerous mountain roads. The film is created and narrated by Returned American Peace Corps Volunteer, Ron Ranson who worked as a teacher in Nepal for two years.

Director Biography -

Ron Ranson has worked as a professional theatre scenic designer most of his life and taught theatre design and painting for 24 years at University of California, San Diego. He taught high school and college in Nepal as an American Peace Corps Volunteer – and has returned there numerous times to trek, make the meditation film “PRAYER FLAGS OF NEPAL” and to reconnect with Nepal. After the terrible earthquakes in Nepal in April 2015, Ron brought together talented, but now unemployed, Nepali film makers to help produce a documentary about the stunning artwork displayed on Nepal’s large freight trucks – a unique art form that expresses so much about Nepali culture.

Director Statement

There are many documentary films about Nepal – highlighting spectacular trekking trails, Mt. Everest and well known tourist sites. "Tattooed Trucks of Nepal – Horn Please" is a first look at Nepal’s flourishing truck art industry with expressions of faith, sports mania and an interest in bringing large expressions of color and design to the Nepali road system. The Nepalis filmmakers who worked with me were unemployed after the 2015 earthquake. I brought them back together after our successful "PRAYER FLAGS OF NEPAL" film to give all of us a positive and creative experience in highlighting a little-known area of Nepal art.