Opening Night of the inaugural Tibet Film Festival in New York!
“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.
Post-film: Q&A with Leaving Fear Behind director Dhondup Wangchen and Dechen Pemba.
“State of Statelessness”
Tenzin Tsetan Choklay, Tsering Tashi Gyalthang, Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam, Sonam Tseten | 2024 | India | Feature | 106 mins
The first-ever Tibetan-language anthology feature, made by Tibetan filmmakers living in exile in India, America and Vietnam. Its four stories trace what it means to belong to a country you cannot return to. A father in Vietnam tells his young daughter that the Mekong flowing past their new home begins in his homeland. Two sisters reunite to cremate their mother, only to find that years apart have left knots grief alone cannot untie. A couple recovering from a family tragedy is shaken by a visit from an old school friend who has made it in America. And a son returns to his late father’s home in Dharamshala, where he uncovers a secret that challenges his sense of heritage and identity. World premiere: Busan International Film Festival, 2024.
The four films:
At the End, the Rain Stops, by Tenzin Tsetan Choklay
Where the River Ends, by Tsering Tashi Gyalthang
Bardo, by Sonam Tseten
Little Cloud, by Tenzing Sonam & Ritu Sarin
Post-film: Q&A with director Tenzin Tsetan Choklay
About the filmmakers
Tsering Tashi Gyalthang is a Tibetan filmmaker and artist based in Vietnam. Born in India, he studied fine arts in the United States and founded the production house Yeti Films in Vietnam in 2006. His shorts have screened at the Cannes Short Film Corner and the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, and his video installations with Charwei Tsai have been shown at the Sharjah and Sydney Biennials and London’s Hayward Gallery.
Sonam Tseten is an independent filmmaker based in Dharamshala. Born in Tibet, he came into exile as a young boy and grew up in India’s Tibetan refugee community. His films, including Tsampa to Pizza, A Girl from China, Pawo (2017) and Pema (2019), mostly deal with separation, reunion and the experience of exile.
Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin have made films together for more than thirty years from their base in Dharamshala. Their work, which centers on Tibetan exile, identity and culture, has been broadcast by the BBC, PBS, Arte and NHK. The Sun Behind the Clouds (2009) won the Václav Havel Award at One World in Prague, and their features Dreaming Lhasa and The Sweet Requiem both premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. They founded and direct the Dharamshala International Film Festival.
Tenzin Tsetan Choklay is a Tibetan American filmmaker based in New York and Dharamshala. With support from the Busan International Film Festival, he studied directing at the Korean Academy of Film Arts in Seoul as one of its first non-Korean students. His documentary Bringing Tibet Home premiered at Busan in 2014, won international awards and was released in more than 40 theaters in South Korea. In 2020 he co-founded the Drung Tibetan Filmmakers’ Collective. His short 1994 was commissioned by the Rubin Museum of Art.