Dzongkha is spoken in India and Bhutan and 4 movies (between 1894 and 2019) with this language have been recorded so far. Most of these movies were shot in Bhutan (3). Popular genres for Dzongkha movies are Drama (3), Adventure (1) and Animation (1). Autour d’une cabine (1894), Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019), Travellers and Magicians (2003) and The Red Phallus (2019) are among the best known & most successful Dzongkha movies.
A young government official, named Dondup, who is smitten with America (he even has a denim gho) dreams of escaping there while stuck in a beautiful but isolated village. He hopes to connect in the U.S. with a visa out of the country. He misses the one bus out of town to Thimphu, however, and is forced to hitchhike and walk along the Lateral Road to the west, accompanied by an apple seller, a Buddhist monk with his ornate, dragon-headed dramyin, a drunk, a widowed rice paper maker, and his beautiful daughter, Sonam.
The film consists of a series of animations on a beach containing two beach huts and a diving board. Two characters play at diving into the water from the diving board and then appear on the beach. The woman begins to play with a small dog and is then joined by a gentleman. The two play around on the beach before getting changed into bathing costumes and going into the water. They bob up and down in the water before swimming out of the scene. Once the couple have gone a man sails out in a boat.
Sangai, a teenage girl living with her father in a village of inland Bhutan, is not happy with her father, who makes wooden phalluses, believed to have mysterious power, and playing a festival clown with a red mask at a local festival. She reluctantly delivers the phalluses to neighbors but she is followed by dozens of men with red masks and costumes when walking through the hill. Conflict and tension grows between the father, who has concerns about his successor, and Sangai, who has a clandestine relationship with a married man.
A teacher, in search of inspiration, travels to the most remote school in the world, where he ends up realizing how important his job is and appreciating the value of yak dung.