A kingdom emerges from isolation, along with its filmmakers

How does a royal bodyguard become a scriptwriter? Ask Tshering Penjore.

Until last year Penjore, 34, was aide de camp to Bhutan's crown prince, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, who has since become the country's fifth king. But when in April 2006 a friend suggested that the film-loving Penjore write a script, he couldn't resist. There was only one problem. Penjore had never seen a script.

With no film schools in Bhutan, he turned to the Internet. He downloaded the script of "Ocean's 11," the throwback caper film starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, pored over the pirouettes of the plot and wrote his own. Though that film is still awaiting release, Penjore has been flooded with offers. In the months since, he has become a full-time writer, written seven screenplays and even co-produced one.

Penjore's story is typical of the growing film industry in Bhutan, which until very recently had closed itself off, by choice, from the rest of the world. Last year a record 24 films were produced in the tiny Himalayan kingdom, population 700,000; in 2003 the total was only six. (India, by comparison, made more than 1,000 movies last year.) The only theater in Bhutan's capital city, Thimpu, is booked for the next nine months.

Budget constraints force filmmakers to use digital technology instead of film stock, and most of the players are self-taught. But directors are churning out movies at the dizzying pace of four a year. Sixty production companies are now registered with the Motion Picture Association of Bhutan.

Landlocked between the world's two most populous countries — India and China — Bhutan has aggressively preserved its cultural identity by insulating itself. Three decades ago the fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, coined the phrase Gross National Happiness, which sought to measure prosperity through well being rather than consumption. The country has since followed policies of sustainable development, limited industrialization and environmental protection. Often referred to as the hermit kingdom of the Himalayas, Bhutan has one national highway, one airport, one airline and three newspapers, all of which publish once a week.

But in the last decade technology has subverted Bhutan's closed-door policies. Television arrived in 1999 and the Internet soon after. Suddenly Bhutan, a highly codified Buddhist society, found itself grappling with MTV and World Wrestling Entertainment. And next year the country will undergo a political metamorphosis when it shifts from an absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy. As the reclusive kingdom changes, the fledgling film industry will play an important role.

"Cinema already has a strong influence on the culture and behavior of the general public," said Kinley Dorji, editor in chief of The Kuensel, the government-owned newspaper. "It is creating new heroes and new values."

But making and screening movies in Bhutan is a difficult business.

The country has only six theaters, all of which need make-overs. Kalden Sonam Dorji, the only Bhutanese actor working in Indian cinema, described the country's main theater, the Luger, as "flea-infested and rat-ridden, with chewed-up seats covered in paan-spit." Filmmakers must wait at least six months to get their allotted time at a theater or screen their films in rented school auditoriums. To reach rural audiences, filmmakers use mobile movie vans fitted with digital projectors, DVD players, generators and posters. Major religious festivals have become important exhibition sites too.

In this industry everyone has a hyphenated label. The budgets — most films cost 1.5 million to 3 million ngultrum (about $37,500 to $75,000) — don't allow for solo job designations. So producers are also exhibitors, writers design posters, and actors double up as production assistants. Only a handful of Bhutanese technicians are formally trained, and until recently the actors were all amateurs.

"There were no full-time actors in Bhutan because acting was not considered a job," said Rinchen Namgay, an actor-singer with 10 films on his résumé. "All actors were civil servants or employed by private companies. Now we have full-time actors, but no one has actually learned acting. Everything we do is on an experimental basis."

Penjore, the bodyguard turned moviemaker, often finds his actors by frequenting clubs and bars and approaching whomever seems suitable. Though some actors are well known, none are stars in a country without a celebrity culture. In January the romantic comedy "Sergyel" pulled in crowds in school auditoriums, turning a newcomer named Sonam Tenzing (who played both a village boy and a hipster college student) into a sensation. Women started to ask for his cellphone number, which, Penjore said, "made Sonam's girlfriend very angry." Tenzing wasn't seduced by fame; he has since quit show business and joined the civil service.

Nonetheless Kalden, who has worked in several splashy Indian films, hopes to introduce the trappings of stardom to his country. "I'm planning a blitz," said Kalden, who is making his first Bhutanese film this December. "Out of the 20-odd films made in Bhutan, I'll star in four or five. I will take the Bollywood formula and apply it there."

Most Bhutanese directors have already done that, adopting the fantastical, song-and-dance-infused narrative style of popular Hindi film. "At the moment we are restricted by market forces," said Tshering Wangyel, who spent seven years with the Agriculture Ministry and is now among Bhutan's leading directors. "The masses want fantasy, not reality." Wangyel, whose recent movies include "The Golden Cup," shot in a remote village using untrained actors, is now making Bhutan's first horror film, "Bakchha" ("A Ghost's Attachment"), but he is hedging his bets by inserting seven songs.

Reality is a tough sell. In 2003 Bhutan's best-known filmmaker, Khyentse Norbu, made the country's first celluloid film, "Travelers and Magicians." Khyentse, better known as His Eminence Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, is one of the most revered lamas in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The film, about a literal, spiritual and metaphorical journey, received rave reviews in the Western press and was screened at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. But the Rinpoche (perhaps the world's only director-saint) had a harder time finding local viewers. The Rinpoche is now working on a script that involves a gun, a monk and the mock elections in Bhutan.

There are concerns that Bhutanese films, which unapologetically derive from Bollywood, Hollywood and Korean cinema, might dilute the painstakingly conserved culture. But filmmakers argue the opposite. By creating local movies they have driven out foreign films, because theaters can no longer accommodate them. The Luger Theater hasn't screened a foreign film since February 2005. This, Wangyel said, makes him very proud: "We are helping our country and preserving our identity and culture."