Price of Knowledge (2000)

Made by Bhutan's first filmmaker (Ugyen Wangdi), Price of Knowledge (1999) is also Bhutan's first documentary. Day by day, 11 year old Sherab Dorji walks three hours to school. In the early morning he meets the other children of his village at a chorten, a Buddhist shrine. From there, they walk to school together singing. The road leads across a mountain and through the woods. The parents are constantly afraid of their children meeting up with wild animals along the path. When Sherab walks the last part by himself in the evening, he prays aloud to fight his fear. They walk so much, his father says, that their socks tear within a week. Sherab’s family depends on subsistence farming. Sherab and his family’s life are presented in a touching realistic portrait of rural Bhutan in 1999.