Mountain Man
In Bhutan, 11-year-old Yangchen’s father is the country’s glacier specialist, and thus the only person authorized to climb the mountains, which are considered to be sacred. He spends months away from home measuring the rapidly melting glaciers. While hiking through the snow to the farthest reaches of the Bhutanese Himalayas, he faithfully shoots videos for his daughter with his phone. These videos take the viewer into breathtaking landscapes, but it also becomes increasingly apparent that something irreversible is happening. We follow Yangchen’s daily life at school and at home, where she prays at an altar that her father won’t disturb the snow lion, the mythical embodiment of the glacier—the Bhutanese believe that this could provoke disaster. But in reality, the biggest threat to the snow lion’s survival is not Yangchen’s father, but climate change.
Arun Bhattarai’s first feature-length documentary The Next Guardian premiered at IDFA at the First Appearance Competition in 2017. Since then it has been screened at more than 40 international festivals (True/False, San Francisco IFF, MOMA DocFortnight, Camerimage, Docs Against Gravity, DOK.fest.München, Ambulante etc.), had theatrical releases and broadcasted around the world. His recent short documentary Mountain Man, premiered at IDFA 2022 in the short documentary competition. The film during its project stage won the Best Pitch Prize at If/Then Global Short Pitch and received funding from the International Documentary Association (IDA). Before becoming an independent filmmaker, he worked as a TV director at the Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) for more than 5 years. His television documentary, Kelden won ‘The Asia Pitch’. He graduated from the 1st edition of DocNomads Joint Master in documentary directing in 2014 for which he was awarded full Erasmus Mundus scholarship in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels. His second feature-length documentary Agent of Happiness is currently in post-production. The project was pitched and developed at Marché du Film Cannes Film Festival and TFI Network market. The project has also received funding from the Sundance Film Institute and the catapult film fund among others. Arun is a Berlinale Talent 2021.
