Bhutan’s first-ever Oscar® nominee for Best International Feature is an enchanting comedy-drama about a daydreaming (but discontented) young teacher who is posted to a remote school in the country’s picturesque Himalayan highlands.

Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a disillusioned teacher whose dreams of making it big in Australia as a singer are cut short when he is reassigned to a school in the village of Lunana. There, he finds the yak herding community lacking basic amenities such as electricity or even a blackboard… but Ugyen is presented with the chance for a new connection to music, and an unexpected sense of purpose within the community’s embrace.

Shot in staggeringly beautiful locations, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom explores the potential for finding contentment in unexpected places. Balancing gentle humour with life-affirming drama, and performed with easy appeal by largely first-time actors, it’s an entertaining, irresistibly uplifting tale about the power of a new environment to effect personal transformation.

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