Next Guardian, The - True/False Film Fest

Next Guardian, The

In a remote Bhutanese village, teenage siblings Gyembo and Tashi crave freedom and adventure.
Director: Dorottya Zurbó & Arun Bhattarai
Runtime: 1:14
In-person: directors Dorottya Zurbó & Arun Bhattarai
Fest Year: 2018
In a remote village in Bhutan, teenage siblings Gyembo and Tashi want freedom and adventure. As they kick a soccer ball through tall prayer flags, their father meticulously cares for the Buddhist monastery their family has stewarded for generations. “Kids these days,” he grieves, “do not want to preserve their culture.” Gyembo is more interested in girls, football, and “Grand Theft Auto” than becoming a monk. His sister, Tashi, is equally interested in girls and football and has always had the soul, as her parents say, of a boy. Directors Dorottya Zurbó and Arun Bhattarai, who is Bhutanese, explore the beauty of a faraway landscape and the familiar, intimate unease of generational tension — of parents desperate to maintain tradition and children desperate for freedom, with a gulf of modernity and changing gender norms separating them. Plays with “Durango” (dir. Matt Sukkar, 14 min.), starring two brothers who spar and play in a bubble of their own until one threatens to break out. (LK) All screenings preceded by a provocation from Aja Romano.