हिउँको गीत
Directed By: Bimal Subedi
Produced By: Joes Pandey, Bimal Subedi & Samundra Raj Ghimire
Actors: Barsha Raut, Pooja Chand, Joes Pandey, Aakash Khatiwada, Ishir Karmacharya, etc.
Executive Producers: Aakash Khatiwada, Jiya Kuikel Khatiwada, Karun Kuikel, & Kaushila Khanal Karmacharya
Logline
A Bhutanese refugee family in a Midwestern US town is torn apart when the grandparents' buried traumatic past of ethnic cleansing and cultural exile haunts their 8-year-old grandson Ishir, forcing them to confront the truth and reunite to reclaim their identity and shared strength.
"The Snow is Singing" is an ultra low-budget feature film that tells the story of Bhutanese refugees in the United States. The film aims to immerse the audience not only in the narrative but also in a unique visual experience, which director Bimal Subedi designed using his two decades of expertise in theater design, direction, playwriting, and teaching.
The film features many non-actors who have lived through these experiences. Its story was developed with their input, focusing on how the Bhutanese government's ethnic cleansing was the result of a long-term design, not a sudden reaction. The film also serves as a powerful work of advocacy in support of refugees worldwide.
UNIQUE FEATURES
• Non-Actors Reenacting Truth – Lead Aakash Khatiwada and others portray their own stories of displacement
• Grassroots-Driven – Bhutanese Americans donated homes, food, and locations, and volunteered on set
• Intimate Production – A dedicated 6–7 person crew sustained the film with passion over scale
• Blended Form – A drama inside a protest inside a memory—where identity is both performance and survival
An eight-year-old boy named Ishir is haunted by the traumatic stories of cultural exile and ethnic cleansing in Bhutan, passed down to him by his grandparents. As the buried past blurs the line between his dreams and reality, his psychological struggles begin to shatter the entire family.
While Ishir grapples with these inherited memories, each family member is dealing with their own private battles. His father, Sagar, spirals into alcoholism and gambling, creating new problems that threaten to destroy them. The cycle of psychological issues also consumes Sagar's wife, Mannata, a psychiatrist who treats other refugees with similar traumas. For her, the line between professional and private life dissolves as she finds herself constantly surrounded by the very stories that are tearing her family apart.
On the other side of the divide, Mahashoor, Ishir's grandfather and a respected elder, stubbornly insists on staging a dramatic performance for the visiting King of Bhutan. The community's artistic protest becomes the central focus, but the family's internal turmoil builds to a critical point. The grandmother's silence echoes the untold stories of Bhutan's exiled women, while the film builds toward a pivotal question: Will Mahashoor prioritize his lifelong quest for justice by confronting the King, or will he focus on reuniting his shattered family?
Ultimately, the family is forced to confront their painful history. Through their shared struggle, they come to realize the true strength of being united, accepting the truth of their past, and reclaiming their collective identity.
KEY THEMES
• Ethnic cleansing and state-led cultural erasure
• Intergenerational trauma and mental health
• Statelessness and the illusion of safety in diaspora
• Political protest through community theatre
• Healing through art, memory, and voice
How many times must one person endure displacement? What about the country that offered refuge? This very question is highlighted by the recent deportation of approximately four dozen Bhutanese refugees from the United States. These individuals were not undocumented, nor did they cross borders illegally; the U.S. itself facilitated their resettlement, and they had adopted it as their home. Yet, after a decade, the U.S. deported these individuals back towards Bhutan, the very country that forcibly displaced about 100,000 people in the 1980s and 1990s. In a deepening of their pain, Bhutan refused to accept them again, seizing their documents and rendering them stateless once more. These deportations have reignited communal fear, echoing the violence and erasure they had once fled.
Even getting "home" across seven oceans, life has not been easy for Bhutanese refugees. Especially those who faced challenges adapting to their new home committed suicide. It was an epidemic but didn't get enough attention and care.
The Snow is Singing confronts one of the world’s most underrepresented yet devastating humanitarian crises: the ethnic cleansing of the Lhotshampa people by the Kingdom of Bhutan. Labeled as illegal immigrants in their own homeland, they were systematically expelled, stripped of citizenship, and confined to refugee camps for decades.
Even after resettlement through U.N. programs, the trauma didn’t end. In the United States, Bhutanese refugees have faced severe cultural isolation, mental health challenges, and economic hardship, resulting in one of the highest suicide rates among refugee communities—more than double the national average. For many, the so-called “American dream” has become a continuation of uncertainty, invisibility, and unresolved grief.
In recent years, this pain has deepened: dozens of resettled refugees have been forcibly deported to Bhutan—a country that stripped them of their identity yet refuses to accept them, seizing their documents and rendering them stateless once again. These deportations have reignited communal fear, echoing the violence and erasure they had once fled.
The film is about a family who tackles all these challenges but succeeds by uniting. The film centers around the struggles, failures, and successes of this family.
The Snow is Singing gives voice to this silenced history and an ongoing crisis. It is not just timely; it is urgent.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
My life has been defined by constant movement. As a child, my family’s nomadic existence across Nepal taught me about the beautiful, yet painful, nature of change. My soul finally found roots in one place, only to be torn away by a sudden calamity. This experience prepared me for a deeper connection to stories of displacement, particularly those of the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees whose narratives of ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure resonated with my own quiet longing for a permanent home.
Inspired by these experiences, my film, "The Snow Is Singing," is not just a narrative; it's a living tapestry of real lives, pain, and hope. It is an exploration of how generational trauma shapes us and how resilience is born from suffering. I have worked closely with survivors, and their voices—full of both hardship and immense strength—have become the heartbeat of this film, creating a shared healing process.
As a director, I see "The Snow Is Singing" as a theatre-film—a sensory experience that blurs the lines between reality and memory. My aesthetic, a form of realism, uses hyper-real details and dreamlike abstraction to reflect how our past shapes our present. The camera is a witness, layering time and space like strata of consciousness, while sound, texture, and fragmented images work to evoke a deep, emotional response.
Ultimately, this film is a heartfelt exploration of cultural loss and the enduring strength of the human spirit. It’s a call for empathy and understanding, inviting the audience to inhabit its world and feel that even in the greatest pain, there can be a melody of life.
