Pension Patta: Nepali Film Now Showing in UAE Cinemas — Story, Cast and Showtimes
Maotse Gurung's family drama opened in the UAE on September 24 — VOX screenings in Sharjah and Dubai with Arabic and English subtitles, 140 minutes, starring Da
By Nepalese Events Australia Editorial
Published: 2026-09-30T09:00:00.000000Z
Category: Movies & Entertainment
One of the year's most talked-about Nepali films has reached Gulf screens: Pension Patta released in UAE cinemas on September 24, 2026, with VOX Cinemas listings showing the film playing at City Centre Sharjah and City Centre Shindagha, Dubai in early October.
The film
Directed by Maotse Gurung — the filmmaker who has become the reference point for regionally grounded Nepali storytelling — Pension Patta is a family drama running 140 minutes, presented in Nepali with Arabic and English subtitles per VOX's listing. The principal cast includes Dayahang Rai, Buddhi Tamang and Gaumaya Gurung.
The story centres on Rajan and Chalu, a mother and son living in a squatter settlement beside the Khudi River. When Rajan's father dies, the family inherits a pension-related problem alongside the debt — the kind of premise Gurung builds into structural drama about how Nepal's systems touch its poorest citizens. It's the same register that made the film's earlier UK release a diaspora event (see our UK coverage).
Where and how to watch in the UAE
The VOX listing shows sessions at the City Centre chain locations — Sharjah and Dubai's Shindagha — the malls closest to the community's population centres. Ticket prices run the standard VOX tiers; Nepali-language films at VOX typically hold a one-to-two-week window, so early-October sessions are the reliable window rather than assuming a long run.
The UAE's cinema pattern
What's notable about the UAE market — and what our UAE movie guide s — is that Nepali films here get mainstream multiplex releases with proper subtitle packages, not community-hall screenings. That's the distinction between the UAE and, say, Japan's circuit: a Nepali film in Dubai plays in a VOX multiplex listed on the same app as Hollywood, which changes who can casually discover it. The October 1 listings also included Jhingedaaw 2 in the same multiplex ecosystem.
The UAE desk carries each new Nepali release as VOX, Novo and Star Cinemas confirm them.
Gurung's cinema, for the uninitiated
Maotse Gurung's name carries a particular meaning in contemporary Nepali film: he's the director most associated with regionally authentic storytelling — films rooted in specific Nepali communities and dialects rather than Kathmandu-generic plots, a sensibility that makes Pension Patta's riverside-squatter premise feel like reportage as much as drama. The film's release journey — Nepal and Canada before the UK and UAE — follows the now-standard global window for serious Nepali titles, and its arrival in Gulf multiplexes with subtitle packages puts it in front of the exact audience its subject speaks to: the migrant community watching a story about the people the remittance economy left behind.
One practical detail for non-Nepali companions: the Arabic-and-English subtitle package means the film is genuinely watchable for the wider circle a Dubai Nepali brings — workmates, partners' families, the South Asian friends who make up a multiplex's second audience. That accessibility is the multiplex-circuit advantage over the community-hall model: a Nepali film in the UAE isn't only for Nepalis anymore.
For the film's wider context: our UK desk covered its festival-to-release arc — this UAE run completes the title's current international window, and the audience here is arguably the one the story was made for.
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