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Travellers and Magicians
Travellers and Magicians (Chang hub thaa, 2003) is a feature film written and directed by Khyentse Norbu and the first feature film shot entirely inside Bhutan. The Dzongkha-language film follows a homesick young civil servant journeying west along the Lateral Road and a parable told to him by a wandering monk.
Travellers and Magicians (Dzongkha: ཆང་ཧུབ་ཐ, transliterated Chang hub thaa) is a 2003 feature film written and directed by Khyentse Norbu. It is the first feature film shot entirely within the borders of Bhutan and the first feature in the Dzongkha language to receive international theatrical distribution.[1]
The film alternates between two narrative strands: a contemporary road movie following a young government official who hopes to leave Bhutan to work in the United States, and a folk-tale parable told to him by a monk encountered along the way. The cast is composed almost entirely of non-professional Bhutanese actors. The Bhutanese parliamentarian and scholar Sonam Kinga, who plays one of the travellers, also worked as a Dzongkha dialect coach to the production.[1]
Travellers and Magicians followed Khyentse Norbu's 1999 debut The Cup, which had been shot at his monastery in northern India. The decision to film in Bhutan was a deliberate one, both for the director and for the film's place in the wider development of Bhutanese cinema.
Production
The film was shot on locations including the Dochula pass, the central districts of Bhutan, and small villages along the east–west Lateral Road. The production used Bhutanese crew where possible and assembled an international post-production team. The producer Jeremy Thomas of Recorded Picture Company, who had also produced The Cup, returned for Travellers and Magicians.[2]
The production faced practical constraints familiar to other Himalayan film projects of the period, including limited local film infrastructure and the difficulty of moving equipment over remote mountain roads. Production lasted several months and concluded in 2002.
Plot
Dondup, played by Tshewang Dendup, is a young government official posted to a remote village. He is fascinated by the United States — which he calls "the land of his dreams" — and plans to escape Bhutan via a temporary visa. He misses the bus to Thimphu and is forced to make his way west on foot and by lift, gathering travel companions along the way: an apple seller, a Buddhist monk, a drunk, and a widowed paper-maker travelling with his daughter Sonam.
To pass the time on the road, the monk recounts a parable about Tashi, a young man who, distracted from his Buddhist studies by dreams of escape, is led by his horse into a strange forest and a dangerous love affair. The two narratives — the contemporary road journey and the embedded folk tale — are placed against each other to ask what it means to long for somewhere else.
Release and Reception
The film premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival and screened the same year at the Venice Film Festival. It was distributed in North America by Zeitgeist Films.[3]
Critical reception was generally favourable, with reviewers noting the film's contemplative pacing, its visually striking landscapes, and its rare on-screen use of the Dzongkha language. The film has since been licensed for streaming on platforms including Netflix and Apple TV.[4]
Significance for Bhutanese Cinema
Travellers and Magicians is widely treated as the founding text of contemporary Bhutanese cinema. By being shot inside Bhutan, in Dzongkha, with a Bhutanese cast, and by reaching international festival audiences, it created a precedent that the small subsequent industry — feature films shot in Bhutan and submitted for international awards by directors such as Pawo Choyning Dorji — has continued to follow.[1]
See Also
References
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