Film / News
Bhutan’s first Oscar nominated feature film comes to the Watershed
Renowned as the land of Gross National Happiness, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan had another reason for good cheer when first-time writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom became the first Bhutanese feature to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Billed as an uplifting feelgood drama, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom delighted critics when it was premiered at the BFI London Film Festival. It tells the story of Ugyen, an unmotivated young teacher and aspiring musician who’s posted to the remote village of Lunana, high in the Himalayan glaciers. After a long journey, he’s suitably disheartened to find himself in a sparsely populated community of simple yak herders, which lacks even the most basic amenities. His classroom doesn’t even have a blackboard. But their leader has instilled in these people a deep respect for teachers and reluctant Ugyen finds himself on a journey of transformation.
Director Pawo Choyning Dorji on location
“Being the nation of ‘Gross National Happiness’, Bhutan is supposedly the world’s happiest country,” observes director. Pawo Choyning Dorji. “But what does it really entail to be happy? For that matter are the Bhutanese really that happy? Ironically many Bhutanese leave Bhutan, the land of happiness, to seek their own version of ‘happiness’ in the modern glittering cities of the west.With Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, I wanted to tell a story where Ugyen, the young protagonist of the story also wishes to go in search of his happiness. However he is sent on another journey… he reluctantly goes into a world that is unlike the modern world in every aspect. Along this journey he realises what we so desperately seek in the outer material world, actually always exists within us, and that happiness is not really a destination but the journey.”
is needed now More than ever
Nine-year-old Pem Zam plays the ‘class captain’ in Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
The film also managed to achieve a very low environmental impact. Like the teacher, the crew undertook an eight-day trek to reach the village and then relied entirely on what could be carried on 64 mules and solar powered kit. It also involved many of the villagers in the production, including casting nine-year-old Pem Zam as one of its star characters.
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom opens at the Watershed on Friday March 10. Go here for tickets.
All images: Peccadillo Pictures
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