August 8, 2025
THIMPHU – Bhutanese filmmaker Chand RC’s latest short film, “Zampa (The Bridge)”, will have its world premiere at the Osaka Asian Film Festival in Japan this month.
The film, a minimalist yet deeply personal meditation on suicide and human connection, has been described by festival curators as “powerful, lyrical, and profoundly relevant”.
Shot in October last year and completed by December after post-production work in Chennai and Kochi, India, the film was kept under wraps until early 2025. When the Osaka festival team reached out, impressed by the film’s layered narrative, Chand RC agreed to offer them the world premiere.
“They found it powerful, lyrical, and relevant,” he said.
The story behind Zampa began during the pandemic. In 2020, while documenting Covid-19 for the Ministry of Health, Chand RC travelled across the country. During one of these journeys, he met the then Dzongda of Sarpang. “He told me that from February to around the middle of that year, there had been nine suicides in the district. He was disturbed. He asked me, ‘Can you do something?’”
The conversation stayed with Chand RC. “I am a mental health patient myself,” he said. “I know how it feels.” That encounter, combined with his own experience and reflections, eventually took shape as Zampa.
The spark came during a mundane roadside stop near Wangdue Bridge. Sitting with his crew, Chand watched life go by—passersby, a mother with a child, monks, stray dogs. “Suddenly, I saw it. A bridge between life and death, between love and hate, between happiness and despair,” he said.
That image became the heart of the screenplay.
Zampa tells the story of Dradul, a young man standing on a bridge, ready to end his life. The world around him moves on, indifferent. But a stranger, Jiminem, senses his turmoil and intervenes. Their brief conversation becomes a moment of reckoning, a pause in the relentless flow of life.
“There’s a line in the film,” Chand RC said. “‘The seasons will go, rivers will flow, birds will fly, the sun will rise and set—life will go on.’ That’s the truth. No matter what we are going through, the world doesn’t stop.”
But bringing Zampa to life was anything but quick. Chand RC first shot the film in 2022, but he wasn’t satisfied. “It lacked soul,” he said. “So, I scrapped everything. We wasted time, money, and effort—but this story is personal. I had to get it right.”
In 2024, with a new team and fresh energy, he reshot the entire film and finally saw the vision come to life.
Kunzang Norbu plays Jiminem, while newcomer Sonam Wangchuk delivers what Chand called “a performance of a lifetime” as Dradul.
Chand RC is hopeful that Zampa will ignite important conversations, not just in cinemas, but in classrooms, ministries, and communities. “This film is a vehicle for discussion. Any change starts by talking. If the Ministry of Education picks it up and uses it for mental health awareness, that would mean everything.”
Along with Chand RC’s short, Dechen Roder’s feature film “I, the Song” was also selected for the film festival.