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special events
Saturday, April 10th at 3:30pm
Thursday, April 16th at 6:45pm
Two Film Screenings by Pema Tseden at Asia Society
Trace Foundation, Asia Society, Columbia University Modern Tibetan Studies, Maysles Institute, and Kham Film Project present the ground-breaking work of filmmaker Pema Tseden (Wanma Caidan in Chinese), who has emerged as the outstanding cinematic voice of Tibet. Hailing from the Tibetan area of Amdo (Qinghai) and trained at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy where he was its first ever Tibetan student, Pema Tseden has made award-winning films that meditate on the meaning of culture and tradition in contemporary life, with Tibet as his canvas.
Free admission. Limit to two per person. Ticket registration available at https://tickets.asiasociety.org/public/ or in-person at Asia Society. To purchase tickets or for more information, please call (212) 517-ASIA or visit www.AsiaSociety.org.
The Search ('Tshol)
Saturday, April 10, 2010, 3:30PM
2009. 112min. HDCAM.
A Tibetan film director travels from village to village looking for actors to star in a film based on the
Tibetan opera Prince Drimé Kundun, a quintessentially Buddhist legend about compassion and selfsacrifice.
Traveling by car, the director holds auditions in the unlikely but all-pervasive contexts of
contemporary Tibetan life — in building sites, streets, bars, night clubs, and monasteries. Exercising
formalistic restraint with a contemplative pace and unique camera placement, Pema Tseden has made a
road movie that takes the viewer straight into the heart of a changing Tibet, raising penetrating questions
about what identity means in the modern world. This film is the first ever film made in Tibet to be shot
entirely with a Tibetan crew in the Tibetan language, with production support from renowned Chinese 5th
Generation filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang.
Q&A with filmmaker.
The Silent Holy Stones (Lhing 'jags kyi ma ni rdo 'bum)
Thursday, April 15, 2010, 6:45PM
2005. 102min. 35mm.
A child monk prepares to travel home from his monastery to spend the Tibetan New Year with his family.
The villagers are rehearsing their annual staging of a traditional Tibetan opera but the little monk is more
interested in the comic-religious television series Journey to the West. When he returns to the monastery,
he hopes to watch the drama on television along with the monastery’s trulku (reincarnated lama), also a
child, during their free time, but after one day is left with just a plastic monkey mask. The intricate and
comedic balancing of study in the monastery with traditional opera in the village and Chinese drama on
television brings to life the Tibetans’ seamless interweaving of tradition and globalization. Speaking as the
chair of the Jury at the Pusan International Film Festival, renowned Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami
praised Pema Tseden's directorial debut and described it as in the tradition of Bresson and Ozu.
Introduction by Professor Robert Barnett, Columbia University.
