Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk

 

Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk is a filmmaker from Bhutan. He grew up in a rural district of Eastern Bhutan before moving to the capital, Thimphu, where he is currently based.

 

At the age of fourteen, an event occurred that was to change the course of his life. He was chosen to play the role of the young Dalai Lama in Jean Jacques Annaud’s film Seven Years in Tibet. He later studied at the University of Pune in India, receiving a BA in Social Legal Science in 2007.

 

He founded his production company, Gumar Films in 2011 and made his debut feature film Gyalsey: Legacy of a Prince in 2012 which he self-distributed in Bhutan. The film received excellent local reviews and won a Bhutan National Film Award for Best Male Newcomer. The same year he was commissioned to make a film for the first wedding anniversary of the King and Queen of Bhutan, The Royal Wedding (2012). He was also commissioned to direct and produce Bhutan, Happiness is a Place (Bhutan Tourism Council, 2016) and he also directed and produced a short documentary Of Gods and Arrows (Gumar Films, 2015).

 

In continuing his work as an actor, he was cast in the lead role for the film Honeygiver Among the Dogs, directed by Bhutanese filmmaker Dechen Roder. The film premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2016 and went on to screen at Berlinale 2017 among various other international film festivals.

 

In 2017, Jamyang was selected for the AFiS six-month programme in film producing at the inaugural Busan Asian Film School. The same year he was invited to the Open Doors Lab at Locarno Festival as an observer and was selected again for the Open Doors Hub in 2018 for his current project White Gold. His recent short film The Open Door premiered at Locarno Festival 2018, and had its Asian premiere at Busan International Film Festival 2018. White Gold is Jamyang’s second feature project which is currently in development. In 2019, he participated at the Berlinale Talents.

​