The aim of this festival is to enable audiences to gain a deeper understanding of the Tibet issue and the value of Tibet’s unique culture, art and way of life encompassing Buddhist principles of compassion and non-violence. We also hope that this festival will encourage Tibetan filmmakers, especially young and emerging talent, in using and exploring film as a means of creative expression.
The festival largely focuses on new films made by independent filmmakers, both Tibetan and from around the world. The festival programme will include documentaries filmed undercover in Tibet, material to emerge from both in and outside Tibet in response to the widespread protests which swept across the Tibetan Plateau in 2008 and films that shed light on the little understood system of reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, as well as films exploring Tibet in relation to its neighbours, particularly India and Nepal. The festival will also include short films made by young exiled Tibetan filmmakers, including schoolchildren which tackle issues of culture and identity associated with life in exile and more universal subjects viewed through a Tibetan perspective.
By drawing together history and the present, this programme seeks to look at new ways to reflect on and rethink ongoing issues and complexities, looking towards the future and the possibilities it may hold at this most critical time for Tibet, through the moving image.