Kesang Tseten

Kesang Tseten’s documentaries have been screened regularly in international film festivals such as the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam IDFA), the International Documentary Film Festival of Leipzig, Yamagata, Thessaloniki, Krakow, Viennale, Margaret Mead, and the Mumbai International Film Festival, among many. The award-winning Who will be a Gurkha was selected for IDFA’s feature length competition, aired on Al Jazeera, and enjoyed a theatrical release in Nepal. The trilogy on Nepali migrant workers in the Gulf States afford a rare glimpse into a significant though little-known migrant reality. Other titles Hospital, We Homes Chaps, Castaway Man, Machhendranath and Trembling Mountain have received considerable acclaim.

Tseten has been recipient of grants from Busan, Jan Vrijman Fund and IDFA Bertha Fund, Sundance Documentary Institute, and the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

He wrote the original screenplay for the feature Mukundo,  awarded Best Script by Nepal Motion Pictures, and Nepal’s entry  to the academy awards, as well as KARMA.  Current projects include the pre-Buddhist Bonpos of the Himalaya, a revisit of Nepali migrant workers, Jackson Heights Himalaya, and a revisit of the site of We Corner People.  He is also at work on a Nepali feature inspired by les miserables.

He is a graduate of Dr Graham’s School in India, Amherst College and Columbia University in the US.

Tenzin choegyal

Tenzin Choegyal is a Tibetan artist, composer, musical director, cultural ambassador, and one of the world’s finest musicians in the Tibetan tradition. As a son of Tibetan nomads, he feels a particular connection to the music of the high Himalayan plateau. Forced into exile in India as his family fled the repression in Tibet, he now resides in Australia. Channeling the wisdom and traditions of his ancestors through his songs and compositions, Tenzin proudly continues the unbroken lineage which is central to his music. He embraces opportunities to take his music into more contemporary, uncharted territory, collaborating with world famous composers, musicians and artists such as Phillip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, and many more.

In a career spanning more than 30 years, Tenzin has performed at festivals across Australia and curated numerous events and concerts including Brisbane’s annual Festival of Tibet. He has performed in New Zealand, Japan, Netherlands, India, Germany, Bangladesh, Russia, Mongolia, UK and USA, including performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall. His latest album, “Be The Sky” features original works from Choegyal and Phillip Glass’s two-decade collaboration, with Glass performing on the title track. The 7-track recording also spotlights performances by the GRAMMY Award-winning Scorchio Quartet, actress Saori Tsukada (poetry recitation), Alex Ring Gray (piano and saxophones), and refugee children from the Tibetan Children’s Village, where Choegyal himself was raised.

TEnzin Dasel

Tenzin Dasel was born in India & schooled in TCV, Upper Dharamsala. She obtained her Masters in Fashion in Paris - Institute Français de la Mode & worked as a designer for a few major brands. She made her first short film Seeds in 2009, followed by her longer short film Royal Cafe in 2016. She is right now working on her first feature film, Dharamsala.

Yangzom brauen

Yangzom is an award-winning Film & TV Director recognized for her short film Born in Battle, which won UNESCO and audience awards. She has directed over 30 hours of TV, including NCIS LA, Hawaii Five-0, and American Horror Stories. A bestselling author of Across Many Mountains, she’s a passionate Tibetan Freedom advocate, fluent in five languages.

Dr. Palden Gyal

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.