SHORT FILM COMPETITION - 2026 | Various | Shorts | 60 mins. Audience Award Voting

Now in its 17th year, Tibet Film Festival’s short film competition has become a launchpad for Tibetan filmmakers in Tibet and across the diaspora. Every film in the program had a person of Tibetan heritage in a key creative role, as director, writer, producer or cinematographer. This year’s preselected shorts, each 15 minutes or less, range across documentary, fiction, animation and experimental work, and share a fresh, unconventional take on what Tibetan cinema can be.

You pick the winner. Every audience member gets a ballot. The film with the most votes wins the Washington, D.C. Audience Award and a $500 prize. Separately, an international jury of film professionals, artists and academics will give the $3,000 Yak Prize to the best short of the year. The Yak Prize statuette was designed by Thubten Purang, a Tibetan artist living in Switzerland.

2026 preselection: See the films in competition at tibetfilmfestival.org/2026-preselection.

MY SWEET PALA - Tao Okamoto | 2025| USA | Short
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 actors Tenzin Dhondup, Pema Shitsetsang, and producer Dechen Kelden, moderated by Tashi Samuels