Typhoon Gaemi Impacts L.A.’s Inaugural World Culture Film Festival, Keeping Major Filmmaker From Opening Night, But Zoom Comes To Rescue

The inaugural World Culture Film Festival in Los Angeles has found itself impacted by a dangerous storm half a world away.

Typhoon Gaemi, with top winds speeds equaling a category 3 hurricane, lashed the Philippines and Taiwan before blowing into China Thursday night. It caused widespread travel disruptions all the way west into Bhutan, where filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji had been attempting to get a flight to Los Angeles for the opening night of WCFF, a new event that describes itself as a platform for “entertainment that uplifts.”

The festival went ahead with the screening of Dorji’s Oscar-shortlisted dramedy The Monk and the Gun, but instead of being on the ground in L.A., the director participated in a Q&A via Zoom.

“I was trying to be there in person, but there was a big typhoon that disrupted all my plans,” Dorji explained to the audience at the Ray Stark theater on the USC campus. “So I’m coming to you guys live from Bhutan.”

The film takes place in 2006 when Bhutan’s king announced he would voluntarily step down to allow the country to transition from monarchical rule to democracy. The populace, unfamiliar with the concepts of voting or political parties, went through a process of training so that they could choose leaders who reflected their views.

“Whatever you saw in this film, it’s all true events,” Dorji said.

A Bhutanese lama living in a remote area recognizes the impending changes as momentous and tasks a young monk with obtaining a gun before the next full moon. It’s unclear whether the lama wants the weapon to serve some violent plan, in opposition to the political transformation, or whether he intends it for some other purpose.

Bhutanese culture, deeply consonant with Vajrayana Buddhist teachings, values a completely different way of seeing life from what prevails in so much of the globe. The Monk and the Gun is best interpreted in that context.

“We are a very isolated, poor country up in the Himalayas, but we are a country that values happiness over anything else, and that’s what makes us unique… We believe in something called interdependence, and we believe that real happiness is only achieved when all things around us are good, perfect,