Events

A special event featuring the young Tibetan filmmakers Tenzin Sedon, Jigme Trinley, and Tenzin Dazel, who will be in attendance, presenting their films and participating in discussions after each screening and in a closing roundtable. 

This weekend program is the finale of a year-long tribute series entitled, "LEGACIES: Pema Tseden & New Tibetan Cinema," co-sponsored by Columbia University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Modern Tibetan Studies Program, and Department of Film and Media Studies. Pema Tseden (1969-2023) was a pioneer of the Tibetan New Wave cinema and inspired a new generation of Tibetan filmmakers.

Schedule

Saturday, September 21
3–5:30 PM

A Road of Prayer

Directed by Tenzin Sedon
2016
107 minutes  
TICKETS

Post-screening discussant: Meg McLagan, Visiting Professor of Professional Practice, Film Studies Program, Barnard College, Columbia University

Full-length documentary film by Tibetan woman director Tenzin Sedon. This film provides an intimate look at the daily lives of ordinary people in the director's hometown of Lhasa, Tibet. Three narratives are joined by place and time and urban change, through which the director explores "the meanings of religion and belief in an ethnic nation."

Filmmaker bio: Tenzin Sedon is a documentary filmmaker based in Lhasa, where she founded the Dawn Independent Film Studio (2015-2023). In August 2023, she arrived in New York City to start the MFA program in Graduate Film Production at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Her current film project focuses on a mainland Tibetan middle school, “Gongkang Middle School,” which is located in Shanghai and is part of a unique schooling system designed for Tibetan minorities in major cities throughout China since 1989. The director herself attended the school at the age of twelve. In 2019, she returned to Shanghai and filmed at the school from 2019-2023. The film currently is in the post-production stage.

Saturday, September 21
7–9 PM

One and Four

Directed by Jigme Trinley
2021
88 minutes
TICKETS

Post-screening discussant: La Frances Hui, Curator, Department of Film, MoMA

Debut feature film by Jigme Trinley. In this thriller set in a remote mountain area in the late 1990s, a forest ranger working on a serious poaching incident, is visited by four strangers on a snowy night. Official selection at Fantasia International Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, FIRST International Film Festival, and the Tokyo Film Festival.

Filmmaker bio: Jigme Trinley is an up-and-coming Tibetan director whose debut feature film has been screened at international film festivals to raving reviews. A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy (2020) with a BA in Film Directing, and the son of the late Pema Tseden, Jigme Trinley’s films use Tibetan casts and production crews to tell uniquely Tibetan stories. His debut feature film, One and Four, based on a novel by Jamyang Tsering, screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the New York Asian Film Festival, and the FIRST International Film Festival, among others. As a student, Jigme Trinley created six short films, and worked on films by other Tibetan directors, including his father. He directed a documentary on Tibetan filmmakers entitled Making Movies on the Plateau (2017). His current project is under production.

Sunday, September 22
2–3:30 PM

Royal Cafe

Directed by Tenzin Dazel
2016
40 minutes
TICKETS

Post-screening discussant: Debashree Mukherjee, Assistant Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, and the Center for Comparative Media, Columbia University

Written and directed by Tenzin Dazel, one of the few Tibetan women filmmakers working today, this film explores the lives of Tibetan exiles in Paris, dreaming, planning, reflecting alone and with each other at a coffee house called Royal Cafe. One of the few Tibetan women filmmakers, Tenzin Dazel’s characters are “far from the usual Tibetan stereotypes and reveals them as simply men and women all married by their own desires, disappointments, and loneliness.”

Filmmaker bio: Tenzin Dazel was born in India & schooled in TCV, Upper Dharamsala. She obtained her Masters in Fashion in Paris - Institute Français de la Mode & worked as a designer for a few major brands. She made her first short film Seeds in 2009, followed by her longer short film Royal Cafe in 2016. She is right now working on her first feature film, Dharamsala.

Tenzin Dazel will offer a "sneak peek" of her forthcoming feature film, Dharamsala, and discuss the special challenges and opportunities of filmmaking in Tibetan diaspora communities and locations.

Feature Film Preview: Dharamsala and Filmmaking in the Diaspora. 20 minutes

4–6pm

Roundtable Discussion

TICKETS

Moderator: Lauran Hartley, Director, Modern Tibetan Studies Program

Discussants:
Jigme Trinley, Director, One and Four
Tenzin Sedon, Director, A Road of Prayer
Tenzin Dazel, Director, Royal Cafe
Riga Shakya, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Heyman Center for the Humanities; Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures 
Ron Gregg, Senior Lecturer, Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts
Ying Qian, Associate Professor in Chinese Film and Media, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures