All the actors in Lunana are highlanders, many of whom had never seen the outside world. They had never seen a movie, and had never seen cameras before. It was the also the first time they were using toothpaste.
The director and crew loaded 65 mules with cameras, solar panels, batteries, lights, and sound equipment for the eight-day trek up the mountains to isolated Lunana to undertake filming.
Lunana is actually a fairly prosperous community in the remote northwest Bhutan, bordering Tibet. Their prosperity is a recent phenomenon, an outcome of Bhutanese government allowing them to collect and sell the medicinal fungi, Cordyceps sinensis, growing on their neighboring mountains at an elevation between 14,500 feet and 17,000 feet.
Official submission of Bhutan for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021.
The crew members of Lunana didn't take bath while they were up there filming for three months because of extreme weather and lack of facility.