The Cup (film)

The Cup (Tibetan: ཕོར་པ, Phörpa) is a 1999 feature film written and directed by Khyentse Norbu. The film is widely cited as the first feature film directed by a Bhutanese-born filmmaker to receive international theatrical distribution and was Bhutan's first submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.^[1]

The film is set in a Tibetan exile monastery in northern India during the final stages of the 1998 FIFA World Cup. It follows two football-obsessed novice monks who scheme to obtain a television set so that the monastery can watch the World Cup final between France and Brazil. The dialogue is mostly in Tibetan and the cast is composed of monks playing themselves or characters close to themselves.^[2]

The Cup is often described as the first feature film made in Bhutanese-led conditions, although the production was a Bhutan–Australia co-production filmed at Khyentse Norbu's monastic seat in Chauntra, Himachal Pradesh, rather than inside Bhutan. The first feature shot entirely within Bhutan would be Khyentse Norbu's own follow-up, Travellers and Magicians (2003).^[3]

Production

The producer was Jeremy Thomas through Recorded Picture Company, who had worked with Khyentse Norbu when the latter served as a religious adviser on Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha (1993). The cinematographer was Paul Warren. The film was shot in Chauntra, where Khyentse Norbu's monastery houses Tibetan monks who fled into exile after 1959.^[4]

The principal cast — including Jamyang Lodro as the football-obsessed Orgyen and Orgyen Tobgyal as the senior monk — were not professional actors. Many of the monks who appear on screen had themselves recently arrived from Tibet.^[1]

Plot

Two new arrivals from Tibet, brothers Palden and Nyima, reach the monastery during the World Cup. They are taken under the wing of the football-obsessed novice Orgyen, who has been sneaking out of the monastery at night to watch matches in a nearby village. When the abbot bans further excursions, Orgyen organises a collection among the monks to rent a satellite television and broadcast the final inside the monastery walls. The narrative balances the comedy of monastic life against the homesickness and uncertainty of the new refugees.

Release and Reception

The film premiered in the Directors' Fortnight at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. It went on to play at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, and was distributed in North America by Fine Line Features.^[1]

Reviews were broadly positive. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film three and a half stars and praised its observational humour. The New York Times described Khyentse Norbu as "a born filmmaker."^[2] The film was Bhutan's submission to the 72nd Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category, although it was not nominated.^[1]

Significance

For Bhutanese cinema, The Cup functions as a foundational reference. It established Khyentse Norbu's international profile and prepared the ground for the first feature shot inside Bhutan, Travellers and Magicians, four years later. For Buddhist studies and film studies audiences, the film is also discussed as a rare example of monastic life filmed from inside the institution by a serving lama, rather than from the perspective of an outside observer.^[5]

See Also

• Khyentse Norbu
• Travellers and Magicians
• Cinema of Bhutan

References

1. The Cup (1999 film) — Wikipedia
2. The Cup — Roger Ebert review
3. Travellers and Magicians — Wikipedia
4. The Cup — HanWay Films
5. The Cup — Tricycle: The Buddhist Review