The Search – A Tibetan film from Tibet shows in London Film Festival 2009
Shanghai Film Festival Award 2009 : June 13-21
Jury Grand Prix Award:
The Search (2008)
by Pema Tseten – a Tibetan Director in Tibet
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival
(see the second part)
This Tibetan film from Tibet will be showing in Central London ICA Cinema ( The nearest underground station: Charing Cross)
Monday 19th Oct 2009 at 21:00 pm ICA 1
Tuesday 20th Oct 2009 at 14:00pm ICA 1
How to get there, click here , for More details, please click here , Watch the trailer here
Pema Tseden’s Tibetan road movie centres on the search for actors to star in a traditional Buddhist opera; a beautiful film about a rapidly changing society, about dying traditions, about spiritual confusions… and about fragile hearts.
Pema Tseden used his Chinese name Wanma-caidan on his debut feature The Silent Holy Stones, but this time his own credit – like everyone else’s – is proudly Tibetan. And so is his story. His searchers are a director and two associates who travel around rural Tibet to look for actors to appear in a film of the traditional Tibetan opera Prince Drime Kunden. (The ancient Indian prince is a paragon of compassion in Buddhist mythology: exiled from his kingdom for distributing treasures to the poor, he gave away his family and even his own eyes to those who asked.) They find the perfect actress for Princess Mande Zangmo at the outset, but she agrees to perform only if she’s reunited with her boyfriend, now a teacher in the provincial capital – and so finding the boy becomes their goal. There’s an undeniable element of ‘Tibet’s Got Talent’ in the real-time scenes of auditions, but the obvious inspiration from Kiarostami’s Through the Olive Trees suggests the wealth of emotional and cultural subtexts: this is a beautiful film about a rapidly changing society, about dying traditions, about spiritual confusions… and about fragile hearts.
Tony Rayns (source: www.bfi.org.uk)
