Two New Bhutanese Films Are Making Waves at International Festivals

Two new films made in Bhutan are making waves at international film festivals this season. First time director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom is winning awards and critical praise. Veteran Thomas Balmes’ Sing Me A Song is the sequel to his 2013 Happiness.

[poster with white Lunana text alongside red calligraphy, in front of small, rural children sitting at a table with a black yak in background]Dramatic Bhutan cinema is beginning to feel like a wave, with work by Khyentse Norbu (Travellers & Magicians) and Dechen Roder (Honeygiver Among the Dogs) now joined by Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom. Director Pawo Choyning Dorji was a producer on Norbu’s Hema Hema: Sing Me A Song While I Wait, also filmed in Bhutan, and is a noted photographer as well. His debut film is a neorealist classic, filmed on location in the most remote village in Bhutan, with all nonprofessionals in front of the camera (most of whom had never even seen a movie or a camera in their lives). It’s part road (or actually, trail) movie and a fish-out-of-water story that seems familiar but doesn’t hew to cliches. The stunning landscapes of rural Bhutan are not merely backdrops, but heighten the otherworldliness of that country and the contrast with the developed world the protagonist yearns for.

The film had its World Premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, after which it went to Vancouver, Busan, Kolkata, Golden Rooster, Hong Kong, Hainan, Cork, Jogja and Cairo. It is an official selection at the upcoming Palm Springs International Film Festival.

[poster of seated young monk holding cell phone near sead woman and child against a light green painted wall under brown Sing Me A Song text]Backed by powerhouse producers ARTE and Participant Media, Thomas Balmes’ documentary Sing Me A Song revisits Buddhist monk Peyangki who was featured at eight years old in the director’s earlier Happiness, filmed just as electricity, television, and the internet were being introduced to rural Bhutan. Things have changed.

Now a big teenager, Peyangki is no longer the innocent and earnest monastic, but a smartphone addict (even during prayers) with a WeChat romance with a singer in the capital city Thimpu. Life with technology is definitely more complicated.

The film had its World Premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival, and its European premiere at the influential International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam.

Both films have been selected for presentation by the International Buddhist Film Festival 2020.