Films at the 10th Tibet Film Festival 2019
This year at the tibet film festival
The Sweet Requiem
Tenzing Sonam, Ritu Sarin | 2018 | India, USA | 91’ | Drama | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Script: Tenzing Sonam
Actors: Lhakpa Tsering, Jampa Kalsang, Tenzin Dechen, and others.
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At the age of 8, Dolkar and her father flee their homeland in Tibet. An arduous journey through the Himalayas follows. The now 26-year-old Tibetan exile lives in a Tibetan refugee colony in Delhi, India, where an unexpected encounter with a man from her past reveals long suppressed memories and drives Dolkar on an obsessive search for the truth.
A Stranger in my Native Land
Tenzing Sonam, Ritu Sarin | 1989 | Tibet | 32' | Documentary | English, Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Tenzing Sonam
Actors: various
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Tibetan filmmaker Tenzing Sonam, born in exile in India, travels with his Indian wife, Ritu Sarin, for the first time to Tibet, where he visits his homeland and meets the part of his family that has lived under Chinese rule since 1959. On the way from the Kumbum region in eastern Tibet to Lhasa, the film becomes a personal chronicle of emotionally confusing encounters.
Rituals of Resistance
Tenzin Phuntsog, Joy Dietrich | 2018 | USA, India, Nepal | 63' | Documentary | English, Tibetan
Screenplay: Tenzin Phuntsog, Joy Dietrich
Actors: Tseyki Dolma, Tenzin Phuntsog, Lhakpa Tsering, and others.
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After Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, a devout monk turns to violence and becomes a guerrilla leader. An immigrant in California following the Dalai Lama's Middle Path of Nonviolence resists the restrictions of the Chinese border to reunite with her family after 30 years of separation. A student in India who grew up under Chinese-controlled-Tibet turns to suicide protest. Each individual deals with their Buddhist belief in national and political imperatives. Between the portraits, the Tibetan-American director reflects on different types of resistance.
Dreaming Lhasa
Tenzing Sonam, Ritu Sarin | 2005 | UK, India | Drama | 90' | English, Tibetan with English subtitles
Screenplay: Tenzing Sonam
Actors: Tenzin Chokyi Gyatso, Jampa Kalsang, Tenzin Jigme, and others.
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Karma, a Tibetan filmmaker from New York, travels to Dharamsala to make a documentary about former political prisoners who fled Tibet. Her desire is to connect with her roots, but at the same time she escapes a relationship that threatens to break up. Dhondup, a mysterious former monk, is one of the people she wants to portray in the film. He confides to her that his real reason for coming to India is to fulfill his dying mother's last wish, namely to deliver a lucky charm to a resistance fighter who has long been considered missing. Karma has to experience how she falls in love with Dhondup and is drawn into the passion of his mission. She embarks on a journey into the past of Tibet and into herself.
Category "PERSPECTIVES" presents
One Way Home
Qingzi Fan | 2017 | Tibet, China | Documentary | 29' | Tibetan, Chinese with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Qingzi Fan
Actors: various
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Director Qingzi Fan portrays Tashi and YuJu in her award-winning documentary film. Tashi and YuJu, who have been chosen to study like thousands of other Tibetan children in Tibetan-only schools in China. Qingzi Fan describes on her website that it was incredible for her to learn that for over 30 years there has been a policy of educating Tibetan children thousands of miles away from their families in China to become new elites and then sending them back to Tibet. The "first class" education that these children receive and give them a better life is accompanied by a loss of identity, language and culture. With her film, she wanted to give a voice to these children, who are not reported about in Western media.
Lo Sum Choe Sum
Dechen Roder | 2015 | Bhutan | Drama | 20' | Dzongkha with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Dechen Roder
Actor: Dechen Zangmo, and others.
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The traditional “3 Year, 3 Month Retreat” or “Lo-Sum-Choe-Sum” is practiced by Buddhist monks, nuns and other devout practitioners. 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days is calculated as the time needed to achieve a higher state of clarity and motivation. By cutting oneself off from the world, and delving into the inner mind, the retreat is supposed to transform the practitioner. Can Lhamo, a young, wounded girl facing the harsh gaze of the world, find her own form of retreat and redemption?
Reprise Screenings
Leaving Fear Behind
Dhondup Wangchen, Golog Jigme | 2008 | Tibet | 26' | Documentary | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Dhondup Wangchen
Actor: Dhondup Wangchen, and others.
Trailer
In the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008, Dhondup Wangchen and Golog Jigme secretly conducted interviews with Tibetans in Tibet about the Dalai Lama, Chinese rule and the Olympic Games. Both filmmakers were sentenced to long prison terms shortly after smuggling the footage outside Tibet. This documentary offers a rare opportunity to experience first-hand what moves people in Tibet. This film led to the founding of the Tibet Film Festival.
The Sun behind the Clouds
Tenzing Sonam, Ritu Sarin | 2009 | UK, India | Documentary | 79' | English, Tibetan with English subtitles
Screenplay: Tenzing Sonam
Actors: Dalai Lama, Tenzin Tsundue, and others.
Trailer
The Tibetan-Indian pair of filmmakers Tenzin Sonam and Ritu Sarin had the privilege of accompanying the Dalai Lama during an eventful year for their film project. In 2008, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, there were fierce protests inside and outside Tibet, to which the world reacted with great interest and support. The Chinese government responded with the interruption of the Sino-Tibetan dialogue. Against this background, the film explores the interplay of personal and historical, spirituality and politics, and the tension between the Dalai Lama's efforts to find a peaceful solution and the impatience of a younger generation of Tibetans advocating a confrontational course.
Tibetan guerrillas in Exile
Kalsang Rinchen | 2008 | India | 30' | Documentary | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Kalsang Rinchen
Actors: various
Trailer
Tibetan resistance to the Chinese occupation is associated with the Dalai Lama, Buddhism and non-violence. But there was also a Tibetan guerilla army. Their formation took place within the Indian military and with the support of the CIA. In 1964 it was moved to the Indo-Tibetan border area and they waited for years in vain for orders to attack. Contemporary witnesses tell impressively of their experiences.
The Search
Pema Tseden | 2009 | Tibet | 112' | Drama | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Pema Tseden
Actors: Lumo Tso, Dobe Dorje, Tsondrey, Drolma Gyab, Manla Kyab, and others.
Trailer
In search for actors for his new film, which is based on the Tibetan opera "Drime Kunden", encounters with locals take place in rural Amdo. Staged, semi-staged and yet a documentary. A road movie that polarises and cannot be precisely categorised, all the more captivating because of the author's present attitude.
The film was awarded the Grand Prize at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and invitations to film festivals in Toronto, Locarno and Vancouver followed. The Search and The Silent Holy Stones (2005) mark the birth of Tibetan cinema and have established Pema Tseden's reputation as a leading Tibetan filmmaker.
Royal Cafe
Tenzin Dazel, Rémy Caritey | 2016 | France | Drama | 39' | Tibetan, English, German with english. Subtitles
Screenplay: Tenzin Dazel
Actors: Pema Shitsetsang, Tashi Gyalpo, Kyilay Namdol, and others.
Trailer
Tibetan gangsters? Violence, adultery or even homosexuality? Unimaginable themes for a Tibetan film. Or not completely? In her film, Tibetan director Dazel wants to honestly reflect the lived reality of Tibetans in exile - with all its corners and edges. She takes her inspiration from Café Royal in Paris, where Tibetans seeking asylum meet in the evening to exchange ideas and get rid of their everyday worries. As she collects ideas for her film, her own life happens, which is as turbulent as that of her protagonists. Language barriers, financial problems and doubts arise from all sides - the realization of her film seems almost impossible. But when Dazel can no longer refuse her own life, she finally realizes her dream. Thus a wonderful self-reflexive loop succeeds - meta cinema at its finest!
The Sun Beaten Path
Sonthar Gyal | 2011 | Tibet | 89' | Drama | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Sonthar Gyal
Actors: Yeshe Lhadruk, Lo Kyi, Kalzang Rinchen
Trailer
Nima, a stableman who has suffered a great misfortune, is on a pilgrimage. Is the young man trying to throw himself off the cliff or has he dozed off on a motorcycle? Loneliness and desolation characterize the film. Long shots show barren landscapes, in the midst of which endlessly long roads stretch along. Tibetan highways. Encrypted and mysterious.
The film was shown at the International Film Festival in Locarno and won the Dragon & Tigers Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival 2011. Previously known as the cameraman for The Search, Sonthar Gyal makes his debut as a director with this film.
Wangdrak's Rainboots
Lhapa Gyal | 2018 | Tibet | Drama | 90' | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Lhapa Gyal
Actors: Shanma Jyi, Pakmo Yangdrom, Druklha Dorje, and others.
Trailer
It's the rainy season in the mountains of Tibet. Good for the grain, bad for the little Wangdrak. He is the only pupil of the village school who has no rubber boots and regularly runs the risk of getting his feet wet on the way to school. To make matters worse, he is exposed to the ridicule of the other children. He therefore desires nothing more than to have a pair of rubber boots. But his father has no money to buy him some, and other worries plague him anyway. The silent stubbornness with which Wangdrak pursues his goal determines the further course of the story.
Based on a novel by Tserang Dondrup, the film pays loving attention to the boy's condition and tells the story from his point of view. The film tells in a calm and aesthetic visual language a timeless story from rural Tibet, in which people are embedded in their traditions and in which modern civilization has left hardly any traces. Wangdrak's Rain Boots is Lhapal Gyal's first feature film and premiered at the Berlinale 2018.
Tigernase
Lobsang Sotrug | 2010 | Switzerland | 52' | Documentary | German, Tibetan with German Subtitles
Screenplay: Lobsang Sotrug
Actors: Takna Jigme Sangpo, Lobsang Sotrug
Trailer
Tanak Jigme Sangpo, "Tiger Nose", an 80-year-old Tibetan, spent over 30 years of his life in prison. Today he lives in Switzerland as an asylum seeker. The author is a 25-year-old Swiss with Tibetan roots who has never been to Tibet before. The film shows the young filmmaker's approach to his protagonist and deals with the filmmaker's identity. The encounter creates a special relationship between the two.
The Hunter and the Skeleton
Gyentsu Gyatso | 2012 | Tibet | 26' | Animation | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Genyecho
Actors: Gentsu Gyatso, Sonam Phuntsok, Dawa Gyatso, Gengar, and others.
Trailer
Gentsu Gyatso, also known as Bai Bin, tells an old Tibetan folktale in his half-hour animated film The Hunter and the Skeleton. A hunter leaves his village to go into the mountains and encounters a frightening skeleton on his journey. The hunter and the skeleton find themselves in a reciprocal relationship between friendship and enmity. For Gentsu Gyatso, the combination of new media and tradition is a means of bringing Tibetan culture into the present and preserving it in this way. His work The Hunter and the Skeleton combines these two mutual poles in a harmonious and impressive way.
Tibet in Song
Ngawang Choephel | 2010 | USA, Tibet | Documentary | 86' | Tibetan, English, with English subtitles
Screenplay: Ngawang Choephel
Actors: various
Trailer
Tibet in Song tells of the journey of director Ngawang Choephel, to his homeland Tibet in 1995. He has set himself the goal of recording Tibet's traditional music and dance culture on video. He inevitably witnesses the effects of China's coercion in Tibet. His activities attract the attention of the authorities and he is sentenced to 18 years imprisonment without trial. Before that, however, he manages to smuggle the footage abroad. Co-prisoners sing traditional songs in their cells so that he can transcribe and memorize them before his notes are confiscated. His exiled mother launches a campaign to release her son, which is finally crowned with success in 2002. Tibet in Song is a moving documentary about the beauty of Tibetan music and the spirit of resistance of its people. In 2009 he was awarded the special prize of the Sundance Film Festival.
Tharlo
Pema Tseden | 2015 | Tibet | 123' | Drama/Comedy | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Pema Tseden
Actors: Shide Nyima, Yangshik Tso, and others.
Trailer
Tharlo is a Tibetan shepherd who lives for himself far away from civilization. He is uneducated, but can recite entire speeches of Mao, which he had to learn by heart as a child. One day he goes into town to obey the rule that every person must be in possession of an identity card. He discovers life in the city and meets a hairdresser whose charm he has succumbed to. These and subsequent events change his life in an existential way. Pema Tseden, one of the most respected Tibetan filmmakers from Tibet, has proven that he is at the height of his art with this adaptation of his own narrative. The typical long shots give the audience time to absorb the grandiose black-and-white shots and immerse themselves in the story. The film has received numerous awards at international festivals.
The Sacred Arrow
Pema Tseden | Tibet | 2014 | 96' | Drama | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Pema Tseden
Actors: Renqing Dunzhu, Sonam Nyima, Dekyid, and others.
Trailer
The Sacred Arrow is a love drama from a picture book. Two villages that have been rivals for years meet every year for a bow and arrow arrow tournament. The winner deserves fame and glory. A forbidden love brings different problems to light and endangers peace and tranquility in the village. Intense colours, beautiful landscapes, captivating actors and a simple plot make this film an experience for the whole family.
River
Sonthar Gyal I 2015 I Tibet I 94' I Drama I Tibetan with English and Chinese Subtitles
Screenplay: Sonthar Gyal
Actors: Guru Tsedan, Regzin Drolma, Yangchan Lhamo, Kheydrup
Trailer
After her father has fallen drunk with the motorcycle, little Yangchan realises that something is wrong with him. In her village in the Tibetan steppe it is hard to understand why he doesn't finally visit her sick grandfather. The old man lives in a cave and is considered a saint. Everyone has already made a pilgrimage to him. But Yangchan's father stubbornly refuses. The mother is expecting the next child and wants peace, but the father has reasons for his irreconcilable attitude.
A touching story - told only from the girl's point of view - about a deep spiritual wound of the father, which after many years is severely inflamed and brings an entire family to the edge of the abyss. With his second film Sonthar Gyal has carried critics to storms of enthusiasm and has finally stepped out of the shadow of his friend and mentor Pema Tseden.
Pawo
Marvin Litwak, Sonam Tseten | 2016 | Germany, India | Drama | 120' | Tibetan with English Subtitles
Screenplay: Marvin Litwak
Acrors: Tenzin Jamyang, Tenzin Gyaltsen, Rinchen Palzom, Kathleen A. Renish, Lhakpa Tsering, Dorjee Dorjee, and others.
Trailer
After the death of his father, the young Tibetan Dorjee understands what it means to grow up in his own country without language, culture and freedom. After being imprisoned for taking part in a revolt, he manages to escape on foot over the Himalayas into exile in India. Between the narrow streets of the Tibetan enclave in Delhi, he has to choose between a new life trapped in exile or the ongoing struggle for freedom in Tibet.
This elaborately staged feature film is based on the true story of Jamphel Yeshi, who burned himself in 2012 in protest against China's occupation of Tibet. This German-Indian co-production has won numerous awards at international film festivals. Locations are Ladakh, Dharamsala and Delhi.
Vatersland und Troim
Lobsang Sotrug | 2008 | Switzerland | Fiction | 15' | German (Swiss dialect)
Screenplay: Lobsang Sotrug
Actor: Lobsang Sotrug, and others.
Trailer
As a result of an accident Tashi is stuck in a dark intermediate world of images and meets his family there. Through this encounter with his family members he recognizes his own identity. The film reflects the inner tensions of the question of identity between modernity and the tradition of a young Swiss-Tibetan.