Pure Land
Builds a loose narrative around a long distance conversation between a young Tibetan-American man and his Tibetan-born mother. The character wanders through a natural landscape resembling the exiled homeland of his mother, taking photographs in an attempt to “find a frame that evokes a sense of belonging.” The camera in these works is used as an instrument to reveal the impossibility for displaced Tibetan individuals to be seen in actual Tibetan landscapes.
Tenzin Phuntsog
Director
Also Directed by Tenzin Phuntsog
A fictional short that takes its inspiration from Black Yamari, a thangka in the Rubin Museum’s collection. Recalling her childhood memories, a young Tibetan woman living in New York, displaced, questions if all is lost. Realizing that beauty is fleeting, she attempts to find solace in poetry, ancient texts, and art.
Single-channel video in which the artist's parents go to sleep on a single mattress on the floor — akin to the one they used when first arriving in the US — within an empty photo studio. The bed seems to be floating mid-air within an erased environment as if any place could be photoshopped around them, heightening the sense of uprooting.
A Tibetan-American filmmaker explores modes of resistance to Chinese occupation by speaking with activists across generations. A former Tibetan monk broke his vows and became a guerilla leader. The filmmaker's own mother followed the Dalai Lama's Middle Path and raised her family in America. A young Tibetan man attempted to self-immolate in 2006. How does the filmmaker understand his place in the struggle?
