Treatment

Every individual has a dream. Only that person can fathom the level of his want who sweats, labors and loves it beyond anything else in this world. Perhaps, that is why he alone can reason the choice of a particular path, which later is interpret as right or wrong depending on where we are in life. 'WE'RE NO MONKS (working title was The Four Harmonious Friends') is a story of such dreams, aspirations and realization of these dreams by four Tibetan youths employing means and methods that they think is best. For that matter, every character in this story has a dream and aspiration and employs unique ways to achieve them. Therefore, this story is basically about struggle to achieve something in life on one own terms.

Though dreams are beautiful reality is not. Each of the characters life is a struggle. They are either struggling with family or life in general and on a broader level we know everyone is a displaced individual. To highlight this contrast between fantasy and reality in their lives, I want both visuals and sound to highlight the reality that is rough and dirty but keep fantasy for the audience to visualize through the struggle of the characters. A strong method to do so would be to employ 'real' people and document their lives for these characters are real and they do exist in some regards within the exile community. However, this is a movie so there is always a certain level of fiction and to present it in close proximity to the real conditions, I intend to shoot it in a blended style between neo-realism and docu-drama. Direct address to the camera, frantic camera moves. Actual locations and crowd will be utilized to emphasize the reality of the story. Though not a 'foot of documentary footage' will be used the audience should feel at the end that they have been through the experience of the four main characters.

The theme of the movie according to me is 'if you want to be selfless and dedicated to anything in life first of all you have to be honest to yourself'. 'Finding self worth' is universal. So, I want all audiences to be able to relate to the struggle of these characters who are in a unique situation and speak a different language, but their emotions and feelings should be able to transcend these barriers so that everyone feels what these characters on screen feel and want.

In the present world wherein innocent lives become victims of human hatred everyday, it is also true that they are our own creation. No religion teaches hatred. It is our greed, selfishness and ego that lead us in to the path of destruction and killings. On the individual level these negative emotions destroy us and on a collective level we are destroying each other. The question then is when will it end? Can human desires be satisfied?