Officine UBU will distribute in Italy from March 31st the film Lunana: The Village at the End of the World (Lunana: A yak in the classroom) Of Pawo Choyning Dorjiwith Sherab Dorji, Ugyen Norbu Lhendup, Kelden Lhamo Gurung in collaboration with the villagers of Lunana, the first film made entirely in Bhutan to be nominated for the 2022 Academy Award for Best International Film.
In a world where people seem to have lost their spirituality in search of material well-being, Bhutan is a model to draw inspiration from: this is where the GDP is replaced by the FIL, the index of Gross Internal Happiness. Lunana: The village at the end of the world is set and made in the happiest country in the world, but what does it really mean to be happy? And is it possible to find happiness in a place you don’t expect?
Ugyen also asksa young teacher, who would like to go in search of his happiness, but is forced to undertake an 8-day journey that will take him to the most remote school in the world, in the remote village of Lunana, located along the Himalayan glaciers on the border between Bhutan and Tibet at 4,800 meters above sea level.
There, in the company of placid yaks and deprived of all modern conveniences, he will discover that the secret of happiness lies in the simplicity of small gestures and in the smiles of the inhabitants of Lunana, a microcosm that is slowly fading. Shot in collaboration with the villagers, the film introduces us to a place suspended in time, miles away from big cities and protected by mountains, as if it were a small hidden treasure chest, containing the most precious of riches.
The official plot of Lunana: The village at the end of the world He tells us:
A young teacher from modern Bhutan, Ugyen, shirks his duties as he plans to go to Australia to become a
singer. As a rebuke, his superiors send him to the most remote school in the world, in a village called Lunana, to complete his service. After an 8-day journey, Ugyen finds himself exiled from his westernized comforts. In Lunana there is no electricity, no textbooks and no blackboard.
Though poor, the villagers extend a warm welcome to their new teacher, but he faces the daunting task of teaching the village children with no teaching tools available. Taken by despair, he is about to decide to go home, but little by little he begins to know the difficulties in the life of the extraordinary children he teaches, so much so that he feels changed thanks to the extraordinary spiritual strength of the villagers.
As you already know, the Kingdom of Bhutan or Druk Yulis a state that rises north of India and south of Tibet located in the Himalayan mountain range, a constitutional monarchy of about 760 thousand inhabitants, of which 115 thousand live in the capital Thimpu (2015 data). The current king of Bhutan is Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuckfifth of the Wangchuck dynasty, descendant of Pema Lingpa a legendary figure in the country, who lived between 1450 and 1521, who is said to have received from a monk in a dream a parchment on which there was reported the place where he would have found a treasure, understood as sacred writings or statues, finding some in the during his life 34 all preserved in various temples of Bhutan.
The only country in the world to profess the Mahayana Buddhist religion, this choice has influenced all the socio-economic aspects of the country. In the 1970s, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck proposed “the way” of the gross internal happiness, in order to identify the most useful aspects for improving living standards, the preservation of values and the environment. With FIL the individual is placed at the center of development but with attention to his needs of a spiritual, emotional and material nature, trying to increase happiness rather than economic growth.
“There are five themes or objectives that are considered as powerful tools to direct the process of change: human development, governance, balanced and equitable development, cultural heritage and environmental conservation. The five main objectives not only make the concept of Gross Domestic Happiness more concrete, but also contain the guiding principle that has been given great importance to ensure the country’s independence, sovereignty and security in the future. “ (Source: Wikipedia)
Lunana: The village at the end of the worldnominated for the 2022 Oscars (if you want to know the other nominations click here) as Best International Film and to be released in cinemas on 31 March 2022, it can be a great opportunity to discover Bhutan and all its wonders, perhaps even to learn the true meaning of the word “happiness”. If you want to know more visit www.officineubu.com/lunana.
