The Monk And The Gun
A Film by Pawo Choyning Dorji
2023 - Bhutan/France/USA/Taiwan - Comedy/Drama - 107 min.
with Tandin Wangchuk , Deki Lhamo , Pema Zangmo Sherpa , Tandin Sonam & Harry Einhorn
Kingdom of Bhutan, 2006. Modernization has finally arrived. Bhutan becomes the last country in the world to connect to the internet and television, and now the biggest change of all: democracy. To teach the people how to vote, the authorities organize a mock election, but the locals seem unconvinced. Travelling to rural Bhutan where religion is more popular than politics, the election supervisor discovers that a monk is planning a mysterious ceremony for the election day.
Shortlist 2024
More Films
The Shadowless Tower
A film by Zhang Lu
2023 - China - Drama - 1.85:1 - 144 min.
Gu Wentong, a middle-aged food critic, is drifting through the local eateries of vibrant Beijing with his younger photographer colleague Oyang. A divorcé with a 6-year-old daughter and estranged from his father for decades, he is looking for a new perspective on life while reconsidering his failings as a father, a son, and a lover. While the seasons come and go, people get together and move apart. Only one thing will remain the same: The White Pagoda where they all meet sooner or later...
Dancing Dreams
A film by Anne Linsel
2009 - Germany - Documentary - 1.85 DCP - 89 min.
The dance performance „Kontakthof“ bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, the encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness with all the attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is about feelings, which pose a big challenge, particularly for young people. For almost a year teenagers from over eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey. Every Saturday, 40 students, aged between 14 to 18 years, rehearsed under the direction of the Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and under the intense supervision of Pina Bausch herself. The film „Dancing Dreams“ by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann accompanies the rehearsal process culminating in the opening night. We watch the teenagers making their first, still clumsy attempts to transform the subjects of the dance performance into motion and choreography and to develop an own, individual body expression. They discover themselves in a process, which leads great personal growth. Gentle and shy but also aggressive contacts condensate to individual experiences that many of the teenagers encounter for the first time on stage. Pina Bausch has always encouraged the young dancers „to be themselves.“ It is behind their own movements, fears, feelings and desires that their personal „Dancing Dreams“ become visible. At the end each of them has not only grown up, but above all has become more self-confident, independent and more sceptical facing prejudices. Employing an unusual adjacency, the film introduces the young protagonists in sensitive ways, it culminates in drawing a portrait of an entire generation. Pina Bausch died on June 30th, 2009. „Dancing Dreams – teenagers perform „Kontakthof“ by Pina Bausch“ shows the last motion pictures and the last interview with the world-famous dancer and choreographer.
R U There
A film by David Verbeek
2010 - France/Netherlands/Taiwan - Drama - 2.35 DCP - 90 min.
Jitze, a young Dutch professional gamer, travels the world to compete in video game tournaments. During a stay in Taipei his arm starts to hurt and he’s forced to take a few days rest. A night in his hotel, Jitze meets a girl and starts realizing what it means to be human in the age of the virtual worlds.