Documentary Educational Resources - Geography / Asia / Tibet / All Films

Fate of the Lhapa

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:53:00 GMT

Fate of the Lhapa is a feature-length documentary about the last three Tibetan shamans (lhapas) living in a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal. With no other descendants to carry on their healing practices and a younger generation attending schools, acculturating, and modernizing, these "sucking doctors" are practicing an endangered tradition. Each lhapa requested that their story be filmed so that an historical record would be created. Their fear was that the next heir might not appear until after the old men's deaths. Subsequently, with no lhapa alive to mentor the children, the documentary would be used to transmit the knowledge to the next generation.

These tales of nomadic childhoods, shamanic callings and apprenticeships, cosmologies of disease and treatments, and of their flight from Tibet during the Chinese occupation in the late 1950s will be juxtaposed with images of present-day life in the camp, current healing practices and shared concerns of the future and the fate of their tradition. This is a touching portrayal of life in exile in a refugee camp in Nepal.

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Summer Pasture

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:46:00 GMT

Summer Pasture
Buy Now: $340.00

Filmed in the high grasslands of eastern Tibet, Summer Pasture offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a young nomad couple and their infant daughter. Locho and his wife Yama live in Dzachukha, eastern Tibet - nicknamed '5-most' by the Chinese for being the highest, coldest, poorest, largest, and most remote county in Sichuan Province. They depend on their herd of yaks for survival, much as their ancestors have for generations. In recent years however, Dzachukha has undergone rapid development, and Locho and Yama are finding their traditional way of life increasingly more difficult to maintain.

Summer Pasture evolves as a patient exploration of Locho and Yama's personalities, relationship, and the changes taking place around them. Over its course we witness their travails with illness, infidelity, and the dissolution of their community. In the face of mounting challenges, Locho and Yama ultimately reveal the personal sacrifice they will make to ensure their daughter's future. With rare access to a highly insular community, Summer Pasture is at once a deeply personal account of a vanishing way of life and a universal story of family survival.

SELECTED AWARDS AND SCREENINGS

Peabody Award Winner

Independent Lens (National PBS Broadcast)

Grand Prix Nanook, Jean Rouch International Film Festival (Paris)

Grant Jury Prize, Italy Trento Film Festival

International Premiere, Locarno Film Festival, Critic's Week

World Premiere and Inspiration Award Honorable Mention, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

RAI Award Special Jury Commendation, Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival (London)

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Tsundu

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Tsundu
Buy Now: $295.00

Lobsang Tsundu is a 13-year-old Tibetan boy living and studying to be a monk (Lama) in Kopan monastery, situated on a little hill at the edge of Katmandu valley. Following Tibetan tradition, Tsundu, the middle son, was chosen by his parents to be a monk. This documentary offers a glimpse into Tsundu's daily life at the monastery and his interaction with his family at home, his understanding of monastic life, and his family's thoughts about his life the future.

Narration throughout the film is in the words and voices of Tsundu, his family members, and the abbot of Kopan monastery. Tsundu: Becoming a Lama will be of interest to students in middle and high school classes which have a multicultural focus; students of Asian studies, religion, and anthropology; and students of Tibetan Buddhism.

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Adventure High

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 13:30:00 GMT

Adventure High
Buy Now: $320.00

Five young men - including the filmmaker - take a four-month break from their responsible adult lives to travel by bicycle from Mongolia to Nepal hoping to experience old-fashioned travel adventures. Their journey leads them through diverse landscapes and harsh conditions (the Gobi Desert where water and roads are equally difficult to find; the flooded dirt roads and landslides caused by heavy rain in the Himalayan mountains). They are exposed to diverse cultures and meet fascinating people (Mongolian nomads, Buddhist pilgrims, yak herders in the Himalayas). As relationship dynamics develop and change within the group, the five travelers very different natures only add to their journey's drama. Nevertheless, it is the messages from home that have a much larger impact on their states of mind than the daily physical and psychological difficulties that they encounter.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

Andrea Morelli Special Prize, 54th Trento Film Festival, Italy, 2006

Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, Nepal, 2004

Festival du cinéma nordique, Rouen, France, 2005

"Vertical" Moscow International Adventure Film Festival, Russia, 2005

Catalonia International Environmental Film Festival, Barcelona, Spain, 2005

Fewa Film Festival, Pokhara, Nepal, 2005

Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, Estonia, 2005

Green Film Festival, Seoul, Korea, 2005

Bicycle Film Festival, various US locations, 2005

Ecocinema, Athens, Greece, 2005

Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival, Arizona, 2006

Celluloid Cycles, Canberra, Australia, 2006

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