Lencha

The dazzling new film from Bhutanese lama and filmmaker Khyentse Norbu (The Cup, Travellers and Magicians) chronicles a sacred jungle ritual whose masked, anonymous participants seek after complete self-knowledge — or descend into thievery, violation, and murder.

This may be one of Bhutan’s first known short films, which screened internationally. It was nominated as Best Short Film in the Brussels International Independent Film Festival in 2011. Set in Bhutan in 1980 and inspired by true events, this is a story of a mother’s devotion to her child, as she travels a great distance from her poor, remote community to get some medicine from a small hospital for her very ill baby. In a cruel twist of fate she learns that even though the government provides the medicine free, she must supply a container to hold the precious liquid. She doesn’t have a bottle and can’t afford to buy one. The search for a container begins….