Opening Night of the inaugural Tibet Film Festival in DC featuring screenings, musical performance, and discussions. Punctuated with a special reception.
Leaving Fear Behind
Dir. Dhondup Wangchen | 2008 | Tibet | Tibetan | 25 min
In the months before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, two Tibetans with a single video camera travelled across eastern Tibet and asked ordinary people what they really thought about the Dalai Lama, Chinese rule, and the coming Games. 108 people agreed to speak on camera. The tapes were smuggled out just as protests swept the Tibetan plateau, and the 25-minute film premiered on the opening day of the Olympics. It is a rare, unfiltered record of Tibetan voices from inside Tibet, and the film that inspired the founding of the Tibet Film Festival.
My Sweet Pala
Dir. Tao Okamoto | 2025 | United States | Tibetan & English | 22 min
Eleven-year-old Pema was born and raised in suburban New Jersey by Tibetan immigrant parents: Kelsang, a loving, compassionate stay-at-home dad, and Dolma, a hardworking nurse. Kelsang lived through poverty and exile as a Tibetan refugee, and he wants Pema to appreciate the life they have built in America. Pema, though, cares more about fitting in than about her father’s stories of hardship. Then an unexpected incident shows her how deep her father’s love runs, and what the family faces as “Brown Asians” in America.
Post-film: Q&A with Leaving Fear Behind director Dhondup Wangchen and Dechen Pemba. Q&A with My Sweet Pala producer Dechen Kelden
LIVE MUSIC AND OPENING RECEPTION: Music by Tenzin Choegyal
About the filmmakers
Dhondup Wangchen is a self-taught Tibetan filmmaker. He was arrested in March 2008, shortly after filming ended, and sentenced in 2009 to six years in prison for “subversion of state power.” He was released in 2014 and, in 2017, escaped to the United States, where he was reunited with his wife and children. In 2012 he received the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award. Tibet Film Festival was founded in his name.
Tao Okamoto was born in Chiba, Japan, in 1985 and studied performing arts at Tamagawa University. She began modeling at 14 and moved to New York in 2009, where her international career took root. At 27 she played the female lead in The Wolverine (2013). She has since turned to writing, directing and producing. Her directorial debut, Sun & Moon, premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2023 and won Best Foreign Film at the Maryland International Film Festival. Her second short, EXHIBIT, premiered at the Tenohira Movie Festival and was a finalist at the USA Film Festival in 2024. Okamoto believes in the power of storytelling to make the world more compassionate and kind.