by Ben Tsui
The tenth annual Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) bestowed New York based Tibetan filmmaker Ngawang Choephel’s TIBET IN SONGS with the coveted Best Documentary Jury Prize Award at the Closing Gala party on Saturday, Oct. 3. Cheers of surprise and excitement were loud and jubilant as CIFF Festival Director of Programming Trevor Smith announced its winning result.”The Jury chose TIBET IN SONG because the film was deeply personal and politically relevant. As a complete documentary, it was illuminating and moving,” said Smith.
Ngawang Choephel was born in 1966 in Tibet. His family fled the Chinese occupation when he was two years old. Choephel grew up in the Tibetan refugee settlement of Mundgod in southern India. He was fascinated by traditional Tibetan music since childhood. He graduated from the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts in Dharamsala in 1992. He also earned a visiting scholarship to study ethnomuciology and filmmaking in Vermount, USA. In 1995, while pursuing the opportunity to record musical footage for a project inside Tibet, Choepel was arrested by the Communist Chinese government on charges of espionage. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison before his much publicized release in 2002.
Documentary Programmer Brad Goddard explained, “Tibet in Song was the first film I selected for the series, and is, perhaps, the most accessible. Filmmaker Ngawang Choephel was imprisoned by China while making the film, but his approach seems to rise above the politics and religion and focus right at the heart of what makes Tibet special: it’s music. Much like we in Canada are bombarded with American culture, Tibet is bombarded with Chinese culture, and Choephel does a truly beautiful job of capturing Tibet and showing the erosion of its culture into China. An outsider, such as myself, assumed that it was simply a matter of Chinese political oppression–which plays a large role in the disappearing Tibetan culture–but the complacence of Tibetan youth weened on Chinese pop music is perhaps an even greater threat. Force gives something for people to rebel against; indifference is a more difficult battle. Tibet in Song makes the viewer see something worth saving–something distinct and wonderful.”
Tibetan Assoication of Alberta (TAA) President Tashi Phuntsok was very excited upon hearing the news. “I feel the documentary was very authentic about the situation inside today’s occupied Tibet where there is no freedom or rights to preserve our endangered traditional songs and dances. The film educated people from the free world the values of enjoying one’s own rightful personal culture!”
CIFF will ship the coveted glass trophy award to Ngawang Choephel from Calgary next week. Congratulations and Tashi Delek!
