Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion

The film is an account of the half-century-long occupation of Tibet by China. Shot with footage gathered over ten years, the film includes accounts from Robert Ford, one of the few people to have lived in Pre-Chinese Tibet, interviews with Western scholars, and personal testimony from some of the mo...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Peosay, Tom
Institution:Open Society Archives at Central European University
Language:English
Published: Florio, Maria ; Mudd, Victoria ; Peosay, Tom ; Peosay, Sue 2002
(n/a)
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:c5ab2e1f-f427-4556-9a7f-410a4d308046
Description
Summary:The film is an account of the half-century-long occupation of Tibet by China. Shot with footage gathered over ten years, the film includes accounts from Robert Ford, one of the few people to have lived in Pre-Chinese Tibet, interviews with Western scholars, and personal testimony from some of the monks and nuns that survived the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan religion and culture. While the film does gloss over the Chinese government's rationale for the occupation, stating that Tibet, far from being a utopian society, had been a feudalistic society plagued by poverty, it is clear from the start that this is a film meant to inspire outrage. The description and images of the 1987 Lhasa demonstrations, described by two American tourists who witnessed the protests and brutal crackdown that ensued, are particularly wrenching. Perhaps most memorable is the sentiment echoed throughout the film by the monks and nuns at the forefront of the Tibetan freedom movement and voiced by Gendun Rinchen, a former political prisoner: "The worst thing for a Tibetan under the Chinese rule is that one cannot say that I am a Tibetan, as simple as this."
Published:2002