Min Bahadur Bham
Shambhala
Shambhala
NP, FR, NO, HK, CN, TR, TW, US, QA
2024, 150', bo, ne
Age 16+

 

Among the peaks of Lesser Himalayas and in the thin mountain air young Pema spends her days taking care of the household. As she marries her beloved Tashi and his brothers – one of them a Buddhist monk, and another still a child – this polyandrous union offers a glimmer of hope for the future. Their village family lives in harmony, the husbands respect Pema and care for her well-being. But, unexpectedly, Tashi goes missing on a journey to the city of Lhasa. Could rumours of Pema’s pregnancy have reached him, along with the suggestion that the child might not be his?Determined to find justice, the young woman is ready to embark on a journey to search for her husband. Will her quest turn into the oasis of sacred peace straight out of Tibetan Buddhism?

One of this year’s festival highlights – a contemporary odyssey of self-discovery steeped in Nepali tradition. A girl, a pony, yaks, a few bits and pieces of Western culture, a monk, prophetic dreams, and looking into “the eyes of reality”, as one of the characters says. This allegorical and visually breathtaking cinematic fable, tackled with crystal-clear determination, is a picturesque Buddhist western with masterfully interwoven strands of detective fiction and emancipation. The director Bahadur Bham, a student of Buddhism, political science, and anthropology at a doctoral level, is a torchbearer of Nepali cinema – his films have been screened in Venice, he has been nominated for an Oscar, and he is the first Nepali filmmaker to have his latest feature selected for the main competition at the Berlinale.