Danny Jarabek
Pawo Choyning Dorji is one of few filmmakers bringing the culture of Bhutan to the silver screen, yet he has been able to bring two of his films, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019), and now, The Monk and the Gun (2023), to awards stages and festival circuits around the world. After Lunana was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards, Dorji’s latest effort featuring an American who travels to Bhutan and uncovers a series of unexpected encounters with a Bhutanese monk, was shortlisted for the same category at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards.
The Monk and the Gun portrays themes about democracy, politics, economics, and culture that are symbolically represented in the film’s title. In speaking with Dorji, he embraces the honor and responsibility to uphold Bhutan’s unique connection to this intersectionality and represent the authentic culture of Bhutan in his filmmaking. He describes storytelling as an integral component of Bhutanese culture, and the medium of film as an ideal platform for international audiences.
Read our full conversation with Producer, Writer, and Director Pawo Choyning Dorji below.
Hi, this is Danny Jarabek here with Awards Radar, and I am very excited to have with me today Pawo Choyning Dorji. He is the writer and director of The Monk and the Gun. Pawo, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m delighted to have you.
Pawo: Thank you so much for having me, Danny. It’s a real privilege.
So, first of all, congratulations! Your film The Monk and the Gun has been Oscar shortlisted, and it’s a stage that you’re familiar with as well with your nomination for a previous film, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, so congratulations, first of all, on reaching that stage and having this recognition for your work.
Pawo: Thank you so much! It’s quite strange because, yes, it feels familiar, but yet it is a totally new experience for me because with Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, I had submitted it really because I wanted to create a platform for my country because prior to Lunana being submitted, the Academy website didn’t even have my country listed. My language was not even there, and I wanted to create that platform. I submitted it, I had no idea what filmmakers have to do, the campaign. So, we had no campaign, we had no publicity, we had no distributor. Nothing. I submitted the film, and one day towards Christmas I woke up and I had 100-and-something messages on my phone! I realized I was shortlisted, and I had to Google that to see what that meant. But this time it’s very different. This time, right from the film’s world premiere in Telluride, I had been kind of thrust in this race, and I’m frantically trying to keep up with the rest of the pack. I never expected the film to be shortlisted again, but I’m really grateful, and it’s a big honor for me to, more than anything, represent my country and my culture.
Of course. Well, that’s where I wanted to start. What does it mean for you to be able to be that submission for your country and to bring these stories representative of your culture to the screen for so many different audiences to take in?
Pawo: It’s a big honor because the Bhutanese film industry is so small and so tiny. I was just talking to some people also about the Lunana submission. We originally submitted the year before it got nominated, but then the Academy told us that, “Oh, the country hasn’t submitted a film for so long that we don’t even recognize your selection committee, so you have to update that.” That’s why we had to update it, resubmit, and that was the journey. For us, forget about film, we are such a small country that people don’t really even know much about Bhutan. If we were to share Bhutan with the rest of the world, I think film is such a powerful medium through which we can share the culture, share the people, share those stories. For me to be Bhutan’s first Oscar nominee and one of the few, really handful, of filmmakers who are able to share Bhutanese films on an international platform, it’s a big honor but even a bigger responsibility because there are so few of us. It’s such an important responsibility, I feel.
That’s really great to hear. I’m curious, how would you describe your approach to filmmaking and how you approach telling these stories that are, of course, representative of that culture you’re speaking to. How do you approach that responsibility and how you want to share those stories with audiences around the world?
Pawo: Many times when I have Q&As with my films around the world, I always tell them that in Bhutan storytelling is such an integral foundational part of our society. I grew up with stories being told around the kitchen fire from my grandparents or from my aunts and uncles. Storytelling is so important in our culture that it doesn’t even have a word for it. In English, it would be, “Danny, tell me a story.” But in Bhutanese, because it’s so important, we don’t have a word. And that doesn’t mean our culture is primitive or we don’t have the vocabulary for it, it’s precisely because it’s so important to us. The act of telling us story, so in English, it would be, “Danny, tell me a story.” In my language, it would be, “Danny, please untie a knot for me.” The act of telling a story is supposed to have that purpose of untying, freeing, liberating. For me, growing up in that culture, being a lover of stories, when I make films, when I write my scripts, I think in the back of my mind that’s always there. That’s the reason why I’m making films. So, a foundational piece is that. The other one is I don’t really have a background in filmmaking. I never went to film school. I got into filmmaking because I love untying knots. As I said earlier, we don’t have a film industry in Bhutan, so that means we don’t really have professional actors in Bhutan. We don’t have professional crew. So, my approach to filmmaking from my own background, from the background of how the situation is in Bhutan, the lack of actors, the lack of professional crew, I try to make up what I do not get in terms of performance with authenticity. For example, I’m sure you’ve watchedLunana: A Yak in the Classroom. Many people told me, “Okay Pawo, you want to make a film about the world’s most remote school? Well, this is filmmaking. You don’t have to go to the most remote school to make it. You can just make it in a school in the village and pretend and cheat and tell people that it’s supposed to be that.” But I said, “No. I want to go through this experience. I want my crew [and] my cast to go through this experience. I feel like if we go through this experience, then that authenticity shows up on the screen.” And so far, I think I have been lucky. Both my films seem to have that authenticity.
I certainly think so. With The Monk and the Gun, first of all, the title is just so appealing because it seems like you’re putting these two things that have very separate and distinct connotations and perceptions of what they represent. It’s two words I wouldn’t even put in one sentence, and you have them in one title. So, what was that writing process like for you just starting with these two things that you’re putting into the main imagery of this film? What was your writing process of bringing them together?
Pawo: I have an interesting background because, as I said earlier, I had never studied film. My background was political science. I grew up, my father was a diplomat, and I moved with him all over the world. We were in India, we were in the Middle East, we were in Europe, and I studied my university here in the US. Growing up in that political circle, I wanted to study political science. That’s what I studied. It was an interesting time for me to be studying political science in the US, coming from a politics background from all over the world and seeing the American value of democracy. I was in the US when George W. Bush sent to the American forces to Iraq. And I remember the forces when they said, “Oh, we’re going to go liberate Iraq.” But then, interestingly, I grew up in the Middle East, so I kind of know how the situation there is. So, for me, when I was writing The Monk and the Gun, I think my childhood growing up around the world, spending my formative college education years here in the US studying politics, that played a big role because I could see how the Western world valued democracy, but in contrast, how the Bhutanese viewed democracy as this gift they just didn’t want. “We don’t need it.” But they had to accept it. Interestingly, I spent my pandemic in Bhutan building a stupa, and that’s where I saw them doing what they do at the end of the movie. I don’t want to spoil it, but I saw that, and I thought that was such a beautiful symbolism. It’s interesting you brought up “the monk” and “the gun,” but for me, when I was writing the script, the gun represents and symbolizes the coming of modernization to Bhutan. My culture was isolated to protect ourselves. We shunned away everything that was modern. We were the last country to connect to the internet, the last country to connect to the television, and that happened in the mid-2000s. That is really late! So, when all that came in, I wanted the gun that I put in the story to represent the coming of modernization. Obviously, the gun is not made in Bhutan. It’s a foreign element. And yes, some people will say that it brings order, it brings security, it’s beneficial, but then on the hindsight, it also can cause a lot of suffering and chaos, just as modernization did with Bhutan, I feel. So, the gun represents modernization. And when I worked with my actors, I told them, “I want you to interact with the gun just as the Bhutanese people are interacting with modernization, almost in innocence.” I said, “Look inside the barrel. Hold it upside down. Use it was a walking stick. Do all that. You don’t know what this thing is.” To counter the gun, I needed something to symbolize now the Bhutanese culture, the Bhutanese tradition. And yes, in a way, the monk is there, but more importantly, it’s the phallus that you see in the movie, the big wooden penis, because Bhutan is a Vajrayana Buddhist country. In the Vajrayana tradition, something that is the problem can be the solution. So, as a Buddhist country, the ultimate goal of all people is to achieve enlightenment. And what is the biggest obstacle to enlightenment? It is inhibition, to have inhibition, to have dualistic thought. In the Bhutanese tradition, if you have inhibition, how do you want to destroy it? Well, you keep giving yourself more inhibition until you realize that there is no inhibition. So, a phallus makes you uncomfortable? Well, we’ll keep giving you the phallus until you realize there’s no inhibition and there’s no phallus. But interestingly, I grew up in a Bhutan where phalluses were everywhere. We were very proud of our culture. You inaugurate a house? Hang a phallus. You want to give someone a present? Give them a phallus. Walls would have phalluses painted over them. But the interesting thing I noted, then Bhutan modernized, is the symbol that was supposed to destroy inhibition suddenly became the cause of inhibition because as we modernized, as we became more educated, we started feeling embarrassed of our culture. “Oh, we are so primitive. We venerate a wooden penis.” That’s really embarrassing, so that disappeared. For me, when I wrote the script, I wanted the phallus to symbolize the culture that was being lost, you know? I wanted it to be a bold reminder, so I told my production designer, “I want it really big, I want it really red, and I want that theme where the gun and the phallus comes together.” And you know what happens at the end. [laughs]
Yeah, I saw the actor carving it in some of the earlier scenes and I was like, “Is that what I think it is?”
[both laugh]
But you speak to some of these themes that are present that you’re grappling with in the film, things about modernization, politics, economic systems, and the film’s really kind of operating at the intersection of all of these things.
Pawo: Mm-hmm.
You’ve traveled with the film for a while now, gone to a number of different festivals. How have different audiences responded and resonated with all of these different things that you’re bringing together in this film?
Pawo: I think that is the beauty of cinema. It becomes a medium through which sometimes it reflects back your own values, your own stories. Interestingly, with The Monk and the Gun compared to Lunana, there’s a lot happening in this film. Many characters, many storylines, you have rural people, you have urban people, you have foreigners, you have elements like the gun, as you said, democracy, economics, all that happening. It’s a satire, it’s a comedy, it can be a little bit of a thriller. I’ve been lucky enough to travel with the film as it’s traveled around the world. When it screens for the North American audience, like Toronto, Telluride, and I was in New York, I was in LA, I’m here in Palm Springs, you can see how for the North American audience they really connect with that political satire bit of the story. Democracy or gun culture. They connect with that. And it becomes a medium through which they can relate to those issues. When the film went to Korea, for example, the Busan International Film Festival, Koreans, especially Koreans in Korea, they’re very traditional. They’re rooted in their values of family, order, and the way they interact with the film is not as, you could say, open as the Americans, but they seem to really connect with the story of the family, the village. Indians, the film was a huge hit in India and Indians love the comedy element of the story. In Bhutan—now, this is the most interesting thing. I screened it in Bhutan, and at the end of the premiere I came out, and there were so many people who were crying! I told them, I was like, “Why are you crying?” When I made the story, I made it as a comedy. I didn’t make it that it would get people emotional. Yes, I did that with Lunana, but not with this. And it’s interesting because for them this was the story of how, in the pursuit of something you felt you needed, you ended up losing what you already had. Going back to the quality of innocence. This film became a reminder of that for them. They said that they didn’t even realize that this is what they lost. I thought that was very beautiful.
It is. And the entire film I found to be extraordinarily exquisite in translating these ideas and bringing that story and that culture to many screens. So, thank you so much for your time and thank you so much for all of the amazing work you’ve done with your filmmaking career thus far. I can’t wait to see what is next for you—
Pawo: Thank you so much, Danny.
…and I will certainly be first in line for whatever you produce in the future.
Pawo: Thank you so much!
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