Growing Film Industry in Bhutan

The New York Times has a fascinating article about the burgeoning film industry in the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan. Tshering Penjore is now a full-time screenwriter (he wrote seven scripts in the pat twelve months), and yet a year ago he was aide de camp to Bhutan's crown prince.

Mr. Penjore's story is typical of the growing film industry in Bhutan, which until very recently had closed itself off, by choice, from the rest of the world. Last year a record 24 films were produced in the tiny Himalayan kingdom, population 700,000; in 2003 the total was only six. (India, by comparison, made more than 1,000 movies last year.) The only theater in Bhutan's capital city, Thimpu, is booked for the next nine months.

Budget constraints force filmmakers to use digital technology instead of film stock, and most of the players are self-taught. But directors are churning out movies at the dizzying pace of four a year. Sixty production companies are now registered with the Motion Picture Association of Bhutan.

There are only six theatres in the country that can screen films, therefore only films made in Bhutan are shown due to fierce demand. Films that follow the Bollywood formula are popular, and films that take a mimetic approach are less appreciated in Bhutan. In 1999 the revered Buddhist lama, Khyentse Norbu, created the country's first film, Phörpa (The Cup), and followed it in 2003 with Travellers and Magicians, which jump-started the film industry in Bhutan.