![[poster with white Lunana text alongside red calligraphy, in front of small, rural children sitting at a table with a black yak in background]](https://buddhistfilmfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/at-festivals-lunana-poster.jpg)
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, the feature film debut by Pawo Choyning Dorji, is having its U.S. theatrical premiere in selected cities. The film was the Opening Night presentation at the International Buddhist Film Festival 2021 in December, and has since been nominated for the Best International Feature Academy Award®.
This nomination is the first for Bhutan and for Buddhist cinema in general. The film was only the second title ever submitted by Bhutan for consideration; the first was The Cup, by Khyente Norbu, in 1999.
The film was shot on location in the most remote village of Bhutan, the last Buddhist kingdom. Working without electricity or running water, director Dorji selected his cast from local nonprofessionals and fashioned an instant neorealist classic.
The story concerns an urban Bhutanese school teacher who is sent to a very rural village to complete his obligatory public service before he can leave for a life in Australia, where he hopes to pursue a musical career. Bhutan is known as the nation that measures its Gross National Happiness rather than GNP, but a village elder notes sadly that as sweet as life in Bhutan is, the young people now seek happiness elsewhere. Not quite a road movie (more of a trail movie), and not just a fish-out-of-water story, it’s a marvelous blend of serious and whimsical, with the special sauce of Bhutan’s astounding landscapes. Beautifully shot, with wonderful music, and a winning cast of villagers and children (plus the yak…).
Dorji, a professional still photographer, was previously the assistant director for Bhutan native filmmaker Khyentse Norbu’s dramatic feature Vara: A Blessing, and was producer of that director’s Hema Hema: Sing Me A Song While I Wait (IBFF 2017), which was filmed in Bhutan. Norbu’s The Cup, filmed in India in 1999, was Bhutan’s first official nomination for the Best International Feature Academy Award®. Cinematographer Jigme Tenzing also filmed Hema Hema, as well as Dechen Roder’s Honeygiver Among the Dogs (IBFF 2018). In a nation that just twenty years ago allowed television for the first time, Bhutan cinema, which got a jumpstart when Bernardo Bertolucci filmed several scenes of his Little Buddha there, now has a distinctive, critically acclaimed, identity in the international arthouse arena.
The Academy Awards® will be presented on March 27, 2022 in Los Angeles.
