This is a one-off, an Oscar-nominated drama from Bhutan. A compassionate and captivating film about a city boy’s encounter with a remote community’s age-old way of life, it highlights a massive conflict between individualism, status, and ambition – the switched-on developed world and a small-scale, kinder, communal life.
It centres on a newly graduated teacher, Ugyen. He thinks he’s cool. He listens to Western pop music, and plays guitar and sings in a Thimphu bar. He plans to go abroad, make it as a singer, and is waiting on his application for an Australian visa. In the meantime, he’s contracted to teach. His supervisor, maybe as a last throw, assigns him to a remote village school in Lunana, eight days trek from the nearest road.
