Word: bhutan
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...Bhutan: The God of Small Films
...shooting a film is a chance to be treated like a deity. For Khyentse Norbu, better known as Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, the reincarnation of a 19th century Tibetan saint and one of Himalayan Buddhism's most revered lamas, it's just the opposite. "Mostly when I come to Bhutan I'm supposed to play God," explains the youthful 41-year-old, "which has been such a frustration for me for so many years." What he craves, he says, is the chance to "climb down from my throne and speak to ordinary people. I wish I could go with them...
...meaning "precious one," as reincarnate lamas are called) has broadened the scope of what he wryly terms his "usual sort of profession." In 1992, after meeting director Bernardo Bertolucci through friends in London, he served as an adviser on Bertolucci's Little Buddha, parts of which were shot in Bhutan. Then in 1998 he brought a small crew that included several of his longtime Western students to a Tibetan monastery in Bir, India, to shoot The Cup, a film based on the true story of the young resident monks' impious obsession with World Cup football. "Buddhism is their philosophy," read...
...shooting in Bhutan is more complicated. Despite its breathtakingly cinematic scenery, the long-isolated kingdom couldn't be less suited to the mechanics of moviemaking. Cameras must be lugged up treacherous footpaths, electricity is scarce, and film must be flown out on one of the country's only two planes for processing in Bangkok. Television came to Bhutan in 1999. And, says Khyentse Norbu, those Bhutanese who know what movies are regard them as purveyances of violence and sex?hardly an appropriate hobby for a reincarnate saint. Gaining permission to bring the 16 foreigners in his crew...
...bits, might be impossible to execute if he were the one in the director's chair. But these worries were mostly unfounded. The cast he ultimately assembled includes a folklore scholar who plays a monk, a monk trained in pure mathematics who plays a tractor driver, an official from Bhutan's Royal Monetary Authority who is also a former member of the national football team, a lieutenant colonel in the King's bodyguard and a charismatic TV reporter with a journalism degree from the University of California, Berkeley. They're a devout but cosmopolitan bunch, and they've taken their...