Happiness

Peyangki is an eight year old monk. He lives in Laya, a village high up in the Himalayas. This Bhutanese village has kept its distance from the world. The boy is dreamy and solitary. His days follow the order of the monastery. An electricity line is about to reach the village. Television will arrive along with the current. The world, in other words, is coming to him. Peyangki waits for the day he will sit in front of a screen. The documentary watches that waiting without hurrying it. The camera stays inside the ordinary work of the village. Prayer, walking, animals and weather move at one rhythm. The curiosity of the boy comes up against the habits of the place. What the new thing will bring and what it will take away is not settled. The film does not set out to answer that. It looks instead at the face of a child standing on the edge of a change. The eighty minute documentary follows the days of Peyangki. It is a Finnish, French and Bhutanese co-production Thomas Balmès finished in 2014.