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Intended
as a portrait of a small Bhutanese community that found itself
in India after the British annexed the area in 1865, the film
gives a glimpse of how Bhutanese life has been maintained
in the Himalayan village of Pedong, in Darjeeling district,
India, only 15 kilometres from the border of Bhutan. The film
is narrated through a "personal letter" addressed to the main
protagonist, a Bhutanese named Samten. For over a century,
Samten's family has resolutely continued to sponsor the Bhutanese
annual mask dance in an attempt to keep alive a culture that
is otherwise fading. It is this dance which the filmmaker
came to document. But having returned to England, and faced
with hours of decontextualised footage, the filmmaker faulters
and asks his friend: "And now that I have come to the editing
of the dance, I wonder how I will communicate its meaning
without you here to help me?" The film is a creative and honest
attempt by the filmmaker not to "capture" and to "know" Samten's
culture, but to understand how the processes of making a film
function more as a dialogue with oneself and one's "subjects",
and, in truth, can capture only the transitory qualities of
that exchange.
About the Director ...
Alex Gabbay
holds an MA in Film and Television Documentary from NMS Sheffield
Hallam University. His film Tantra Mantra was screened at
Film South Asia in 1997. His short film Nomad's Land (1998)
was screened at the Sheffield International Film Festival,
the Encontros Internacionais de Cinema Documental, Lisbon,
and the Oberhausen Filmotheck. He is currently working on
Nomad's Bride.
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