Lara Damiani - Tibet’s Cry For Freedom
Inspired by a burning passion to raise awareness of the Tibet Freedom Struggle to a mainstream global audience, first time filmmaker Lara Damiani embarked on a journey to uncover the truth about Tibet’s long suffering non-violent freedom struggle and why China’s grip on Tibet is so tight. She quit her job, maxed out several credit cards and sold clothes and furniture to start The Tibet Project - the initiative behind the making of her documentary. Filmed over 12 months in India, Tibet, Beijing and Australia, Tibet’s Cry for Freedom tells the history of Tibet from the time of the Chinese occupation through to the present day debate between the Middle Way and Independence and the uprisings in Tibet that shocked the world in March 2008. Hear about human rights abuses, political persecution and the environmental destruction of this land known as “The Roof of the World”. While filming inside Tibet, Damiani was stopped and questioned by Chinese military and followed closely by Chinese police cars while filming in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In Tibet, she managed to secretly film one of the only two remaining public pictures of the Dalai Lama.
As the struggle for Tibet continues, this documentary aims to inspire a change for the future and a way forward for Tibet.
The Return March to Tibet - Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement
The Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement aims to revive the spirit of the Tibetan national uprising of 1959, and by engaging in nonviolent direct action, bring about an end to China’s illegal occupation of Tibet. The March to Tibet was one initiative of this historic Movement.
Joshua Dugdale - The Unwinking Gaze
“I had seen a number of films on the Dalai Lama, but I felt they didn’t show who he really was. It seemed that he was being wheeled out for the cameras, for stage managed set pieces. Knowing that the rhetoric from Beijing claimed that the Dalai Lama was a canny political operator, intent on conning the West into backing his efforts to split off Tibet and weaken China, I wondered whether there was a way of showing his actions and reactions on camera. I hoped to be able to reveal his true intentions and character and I wanted to create a film, which would show the real world of the ‘splittist’ Dalai Lama so that those in power in Beijing might be able to make more informed decisions about how they deal with him. With such an enigmatic figure, the only way to achieve this was to treat him like any other politician, showing the world he inhabits and the challenges he faces. The result is extraordinarily rare access into the world of one of the great spiritual leaders of our time.
Dhondup Wangchen/Jigme Gyatso - Jigdrel: Leaving Fear Behind
Dhondup Wangchen was born on 17th October 1974 in Bayen in the Tsoshar region of Amdo, the northeastern province of Tibet (in Chinese: Hualong, Haidong, Qinghai). Born into a farming family, he received no formal education. As a young man, he moved to Lhasa where he was awakened to the grave existential threat faced by the Tibetan people.
In 1993 Dhondup Wangchen and his cousin Gyaljong Tsetrin made an arduous journey out of Tibet to India, traveling on foot over 5,000 meter passes to meet the Dalai Lama. Soon thereafter, both returned to Tibet further motivated to work for the benefit of the Tibetan people. Tsetrin was forced to finally flee Tibet in 2002 and received political asylum in Switzerland. Wangchen remained in Tibet. Leaving Fear Behind (in Tibetan, Jigdrel) began as a collaboration between the two cousins in 2007 – Wangchen in Tibet, and Tsetrin in Switzerland.
The film was shot entirely in Tibet by Wangchen assisted by his friend Jigme Gyatso, also known as Golog Jigme. Jigme Gyatso was born in 1969 in Golog Serta, in the Kardze region of Kham (in Chinese: Ganzi, Sichuan). He was a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Labrang Monastery in Gansu Province.
Wangchen and Gyatso began as complete amateurs, with no camera experience, but with extraordinary determination and courage. They covered thousands of miles on motorbike and overcame innumerable hurdles, all to bring the unheard voices of ordinary Tibetans to the world stage.
For the filmmakers, revealing their identities was always a part of the plan. Fully aware of the risks they took, they rejected anonymity as an option. In order for the film to be made, fear had to be truly set aside