Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019) — watch online on iFILM. Directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji, this Bhutanese drama made the Oscar shortlist for Best International Feature Film. Ugyen is a young teacher in Thimphu who'd rather be in Australia. The government sends him in the opposite direction — eight days on foot into the Himalayas, to the remote mountain village of Lunana.

Lunana has no electricity, no phone signal, a handful of children, a chalkboard, and one stub of chalk. The village's welcoming gift to the new teacher is a yak. Ugyen shows up planning to wait out the year. The children have other ideas about what a teacher is supposed to mean.

Pawo Choyning Dorji shot almost entirely with non-professional locals in one of the most isolated locations on earth, and the film earns every minute of its quietness — there's no manufactured drama, just the slow accumulation of what it feels like to matter to someone who has nothing else. It's the rare film that leaves you thinking about your own usefulness. Stream Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019) online on iFILM.