Pema Tseden, a filmmaker and writer who honestly portrayed modern Tibetan life despite heavy scrutiny by Chinese censors, died in Tibet on Monday. he was 53 years old.
His death was announced in a statement from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he was a professor. The statement did not disclose the cause or location of his death.
Tibet and its people are often misrepresented in clichés. To the West, it was a utopia, a fantasy based on the description of Shangri-La in British author James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon. To the CCP, Tibetans were serfs or barbarians in need of rescue and reintegration. , propaganda films portray Han cadres as liberators.
Pema Tseden (pronounced Wa Ma Tsai Teng in her native dialect), like most Tibetans, did not have a surname and used two names, but as a child she was conscious of her own home and people. He said that he longed to express accurately. She is a culture that existing Hollywood and Chinese films have not been able to offer.
“Whether it’s dress, customs, manners, every element, no matter how small, was inaccurate,” he said in a 2019 paper. interview. “So, at the time, I thought that if someone who knew even a little bit about the language, culture and traditions of my people made a movie later on, it would be a completely different movie.”
In the film, director Pema Tseden did little to portray the Chinese population of Tibet, whose population has increased since the Red Army occupied Tibet in 1951. To avoid Chinese censorship, he avoided mentioning the Dalai Lama, who in China has been seen as a supporter of Tibetan independence. This allowed him to address broader themes such as loss of tradition and identity in the face of modernization while avoiding overt political criticism.
He worked in China and became the first Tibetan film director to shoot a film entirely in Tibetan. He was also the first Tibetan director to graduate from the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, which trains top Tibetan directors. However, like other Chinese artists who explore ethnic minorities and religions, he underwent additional scrutiny from state censors and had to submit a script in Chinese for review.
“His task, of course, was to make a film that reflected Tibetan identity and Tibetan cultural sensibilities without upsetting the Chinese authorities.” Tenzin SonamA Tibetan filmmaker and writer living in Dharamshala, India, said by phone. “Pema Tsedden has crossed that fine line incredibly well.”
In Sacred Stones of Silence (2005), he depicts everyday experiences in Tibet, such as a monk obsessed with television and a villager rehearsing an opera performance for the New Year. And in “Old Dog” (2011), image of barbed wire fence Spread across the Tibetan steppe, this survey explored the power of the state and the complexities of privatizing ancestral land.
Tshering Shakya, a Tibetan historian and scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said in an interview that his film “isn’t just about Tibet.” “This is about China and those left behind by China’s economic miracle.”
As Pema Tseden’s influence grew, the Chinese film industry and audiences began to accept Tibetan as a language used in films. And by combining Tibetan oral narrative and song traditions with modern filmmaking formats, his films have created an entirely new genre called Tibetan New Wave.
“The stories contained in his films are always meticulously constructed and exquisitely orchestrated, telling powerful truths in the most gentle voices,” says Pema Tsedden in some of his work. Chinese film curator and researcher Sherry Kleiser, who wrote the subtitles, said. “He’s an important filmmaker in the world.”
He sought to mentor a new generation of Tibetan filmmakers, including Sontar Gyar, Dukhar Tselan, Rapal Gyar, Pema Tseden’s son Jigme Trinley, and later directed his own films. Drivers, assistants, and other crew members sometimes juggled multiple roles, appearing as extras or coaching the actors in the local dialect.
“He built the early Tibetan film circle, the film industry from scratch,” Françoise Robin, professor of Tibetan languages and literature at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris, who has known Pema Tseden for more than 20 years, said over the phone. Told. “He is very loyal to his friendships. Some have worked with him for 10 years.“
Pema Tseden was born on December 3, 1969 in Qinghai province, part of the northeastern Tibet region traditionally known as Amdo. His parents were farmers and pastoralists.
From an early age he was immersed in the classics, spending hours after school copying scriptures. He worked as a teacher for four years and then studied Tibetan literature and translation at the Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou. After that, he worked for several years as a civil servant in his home state.
Since 1991, he has published short stories written in both Tibetan and Chinese about people facing rapid change in Tibet. Jessica of Hong Kong Baptist University, who has known Pema Tseden for 10 years, said they emphasized the importance of building connections with nature and animals, showing “the complexity of life in its simplest language.”・Professor Yong said. translated his work. He later filmed some of his own stories.
After attending the Beijing Film Academy in the early 2000s, he released “The Silent Holy Stones” and several other films to critical acclaim. A decade later, Taro (2015), about a shepherd’s journey outside an isolated village to register for government ID, premiered at the Venice Film Festival.that won numerous awards, including the Golden Horse Award for Best Screenplay in Taiwan. Even among Tibetans, the film became a seminal work for aspiring filmmakers within a few years.
“Tibetan films should reflect Tibetan life,” director Pema Tseden said in an undated interview recently released by Tibetan-language station Kamba TV. “In my case, since my first film, I always wanted my films to have Tibetan characters, all to speak Tibetan, to act and think Tibetan. It makes us different.”
Pema Tsedden’s subsequent films benefited from his high profile. Jinpa (2018), about a truck driver picking up hitchhikers after running over sheep, was produced by Hong Kong author Wong Kar-wai’s Jet Tone Films and premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the Orizzonti Award. . Won Best Screenplay Award. “balloon(2019), about a family dealing with an unplanned pregnancy within China’s family planning law, also premiered in Venice. An upcoming film about the tension between humans and predators, Snow Leopard, is currently in post-production. At the time of his death he was working on another film.
Information on survivors other than his son was not immediately available.
Lee Yu Contributed to research.
