The Last Shepherd

Logline:

After 51 years as a shepherd, a man attempts farewell journey in the mountain before he succumbs to his children’s definition of happiness, city life.

Synopsis:

Perspective varies from person to person, and happiness is also a perspective. A better life, happiness, how does one perceive it? Can we say a laborious life is better than a city-detached life? This is a story of a father whose whole life revolved around a herd of sheep finds happiness in his livelihood in his village. His sons have a taste of city life and want their father to accept their assumption of a happy life as his own. Tejendra, a 62-year-old shepherd final journey to the mountain as a shepherd to bid farewell to everything on his way, gives us an idea of how attached he is to his way of living. The asthma problem that hit him nearly three years ago had hindered his ability to make his five months mountain journey to look after his herd of sheep.

 So, his children want him to sell his sheep and settle in the nation's capital, far away from his village. But Tejendra doesn't want to sell his lifelong friends, his sheep, just to settle down for his children's happiness.

Director’s Statement

I came to know closely about my father when I was 28 years old. It was then when I learnt about my father’s happiness, his dreams. He had spent 51 years as a shepherd, from his childhood. The sheep were his childhood friend, his married life was spent with the herd, his fatherhood was spent taking care of those sheep. And now, when he is unable to climb the mountain with the sheep, his son, who lives in the US and Korea are forcibly insisting to sell the herd and live in the city. But he wants to live his remaining satisfying life in the village with his wife rather than in an unfamiliar place. Being a son, I have seen my father's unrevealed feelings, and I have come to realize what real happiness means to him. There is still the conflict between my brothers and my father for a better life. Therefore, I proposed to my father to document his last journey and bring out the meaning of his happiness.