First Academy Award Nominee from Bhutan

’Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom’ is the first Bhutanese movie that has been nominated for Academy Award (Oscar) within the Best International Feature Film category. The short story of the film: a young teacher in modern Bhutan, Ugyen, shirks his duties while planning to go to Australia to become a singer. As a reprimand, his superiors send him to the most remote school in the world, a glacial Himalayan village called Lunana, to complete his service. He finds himself exiled from his Westernized comforts after an arduous 8 day trek just to get there. There he finds no electricity, no textbooks, not even a blackboard. Though poor, the villagers extend a warm welcome to their new teacher, but he faces the daunting task of teaching the village children without any supplies. He wants to quit and go home, but he begins to learn of the hardship in the lives of the beautiful children he teaches, and begins to be transformed through the amazing spiritual strength of the villagers. 

Read The New York Times review HERE.

Read the interview with the director HERE.