Meet the 2025 jury!

Sonam Tseten

Sonam Tseten is a Tibetan Filmmaker based in Dharamsala, India. Born in Tibet Sonam went into exile as a young kid and grew up in India among the Tibetan refugee community. Sonam has made several mid-length and feature length films including Tsampa to Pizza, Girl From China and most recently Pawo, co-directed with German filmmaker Marvin Litwak. His films centre stories of separation, reunion and exilic experiences.

Kunsang Kyirong

Kunsang Kyirong is a Toronto-based filmmaker and animator known for exploring themes of memory and immigration. She often employs a hybrid method that blends documentary elements with fictionalised narratives, aiming to create stories that feel universal in their themes, but from a perspective that is unfamiliar to the viewer. Her most recent film, Dhulpa, was produced by the Canada Council and won the Jury Prize at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. Her debut feature film 100 Sunset will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this autumn.

TEnzin Tseten Choklay

Tenzin Tsetan Choklay is a Tibetan-American filmmaker and spends time between New York and Dharamshala. Born to Tibetan refugee parents, Tenzin grew up in Dharamshala in northern India. He studied film directing at the prestigious Korean Academy of Film Arts in Seoul, South Korea. His past films include a number of short films: History of Momos (2007), Elif’s Seoulitude (2007) and Tell Tale (2008). His feature film, Bringing Tibet Home (2014), won numerous international awards, with a theatrical release in more than 40 theatres in South Korea in 2016.

Yeshe

YESHE is a Tibetan singer-songwriter and artist born and raised in Switzerland, and based in New York City and Zurich. Her parents were among the first group of Tibetan refugees who immigrated to Switzerland in 1960. YESHE recently presented a durational performance co-curated by Marina Abramović at the Rubin Museum in New York, performed live at Wonderfruit Festival in Thailand and at the Tibetan Artist Festival in India.YESHE recently released her debut album, Dust.

Dr. Dawa lokyitsang

Dawa Lokyitsang is a Tibetan-American political and historical anthropologist. Her scholarship looks at Tibetan agency as an anticolonial effort in response to China’s developing imperial colonialism in Tibet. Her scholarship on Tibetan schools in India historicises the national agency of Tibetans in exile and examines how the preservation of their national and spiritual identity became grounds for community-building and movement-generating efforts that unsettle China’s settler-colonial consumption of Tibet.