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Bhutanese writer-director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s second feature, The Monk and the Gun, begins with a crackling radio broadcast. It’s 2006, but as it’s only been seven years since the Kingdom of Bhutan lifted its ban on television and internet, this is still the most efficient way to bring information to the masses. The broadcast itself informs the people of a bold new form of modernity that’s about to arrive in the country: democracy.

The main plot of The Monk and the Gun concerns the old lama (Kelsang Choejay) of a small village named Ura. He seems disturbed by the news that the king will be stepping down, so as to cede power to the people, and asks his young disciple, Tashi (Tandin Wangchuk), to help him with a ritual that will “make things right.” He won’t say what this ritual is—only that it must take...

Exclusive: Roadside Attractions has acquired U.S. rights to Bhutan’s official selection for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards, The Monk and the Gun, a spiritual fable written, directed, and co-produced by the Oscar-nominated director of 2019’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Pawo Choyning Dorj. Contending for Best International Film, Lunana became the first Bhutanese film ever nominated for an Oscar. The Monk and the Gun premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and later the Toronto International Film Festival where it won critical and audience acclaim, currently holding a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In my Deadline review of the film after its Telluride premiere I said, “If I were a betting man — which I am — I would venture to say that with his second film The Monk and the Gun, which just had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend and goes on to Toronto next week,...