Title film · 4 min
Gelephu
The title card for the series. A river plain at the southern border of Bhutan, filmed across one day, from the mist before sunrise to the last light on the ridges. Nothing is explained.
The thinking behind it
The series argues that leadership is set upstream of the decision. Before that argument can be made, the place has to be established, because in this institute the place is part of the method.
Gelephu is subtropical, humid and green, and it is nothing like the Bhutan of postcards. The city being built here is a special administrative region with its own regulatory system. The film shows the ground before any of that exists.
There is no voiceover because every sentence we drafted made the land smaller.
Sources
Gelephu Mindfulness City masterplan, 2023
Published outline of the special administrative region.
Royal Government of Bhutan, Diamond Strategy
The longer-term economic frame the city sits inside.
Transcript
No spoken words. Ambient sound only: river, insects, rain on broad leaves, a distant engine at 02:41.