Subharambha (Nepali), a film designed to motivate earthquake resistant construction in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal; includes separate english back-translation of film dialog.

This 20-minute documentary film, "Subharambha", was made in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, in 2013. This is an area of high seismicity and poor building infrastructure. The film was made in support of a Stanford University Ph.D. research project. It features Nepali public school principals, teachers, parents, masons, and other community members who supported making their schools earthquake resistant. The Ph.D. student is a geologist with a communications background, who wanted to know how much people who watch this film change their knowledge and opinions about earthquake resistant construction.

The film is a theory-based intervention that was tested via a matched pair randomized controlled trial of adults associated with public school communities in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Sixteen schools in need of seismic work were matched into eight pairs. One school in each pair was randomly assigned to view either the intervention film or a placebo film on an unrelated topic. Compared to the control schools, community members who viewed the intervention film statistically significantly increased their pretest-posttest scores on the following factors: 1) earthquake-resistant construction knowledge, 2) belief in its feasibility, 3) intent to support a school strengthening project and 4) willingness to recommend that others build earthquake-resistant homes.

The original film was made in 2013, and tested in a trial in from November 2014 - March 2015. On April 25, 2015 a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck central Nepal. The school buildings at the five locations in the intervention film "Subharambha", which had been strengthened prior to the earthquake, all survived. A newly edited documentary film was released, "Naya Suruwaat", that includes this new information at the end. This film may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBxpAroO1vU (Nepali only) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfH9ux4ZHuI (English subtitles)