Pema Tseden
A Complete Film Retrospective of the Groundbreaking Tibetan Filmmaker
Museum of the Moving Imagem NYC
Sep 6 — Sep 15, 2024
Guest programmed by Shelly Kraicer
Co-sponsored by OVID.tv
“His ability to speak eloquently of individual despair and the emergency of cultural obliteration is masterful; his ability to do this in films of such eloquent, quiet beauty is nothing short of astonishing.”
—Cinema Scope
“Tseden’s work is remarkable for shedding light on daily life in an oft-mythologized part of the world.”
—Sight & Sound
“The most important independent Tibetan filmmaker.”
—Shelly Kraicer, VIFF
One of the most exciting and inspiring filmmakers to emerge so far this century, Pema Tseden died last year in mid-career, at 53. Born to farmer-herder parents in the Tibetan highlands of Amdo, Qinghai Province, China, he studied Tibetan literature and in the early 1990s began publishing short stories in both Tibetan and Chinese. The first Tibetan to graduate from the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, where he shot two short films, he became the first Tibetan filmmaker working in China to shoot a feature entirely in Tibetan: 2005’s The Silent Holy Stones. Pema Tseden created seven more features, with largely the same group of collaborators, who are now the nucleus of a Tibetan film community continuing his legacy.
This series covers his career, from the artful realism of his earlier films, which explored the early 21st century lives of rural Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China with carefully framed, exquisitely timed long takes and nonprofessional actors, to his later works, in which he experimented with a visionary, occasionally hallucinatory visual style that opened audiences to the more fantastical, spiritual dimensions of Tibetan experience. Given Pema Tseden’s complicated position as a Tibetan in China, and the necessity of having his films pass stringent Chinese censorship, his ability to tell these stories directly, naturally, and eloquently, in films of such quiet, rhapsodic beauty, is nothing short of astonishing.
Programmed by guest curator Shelly Kraicer, the Museum’s retrospective will include all of Pema Tseden’s features and two shorts: The Silent Manistone (2002), The Grassland(2004), The Silent Holy Stones (2005), The Search (2009), Old Dog (2010), The Sacred Arrow (2014), Tharlo (2015), Jinpa (2018), Balloon (2019), and Snow Leopard (2023).
SCHEDULE
THE SILENT MANISTONE + THE GRASSLAND:
Friday, Sep 6, 2024 at 6:30 p.m.
THE SILENT HOLY STONES: Friday, Sep 6, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.
THE SEARCH: Saturday, Sep 7, 2024 at 2:30 p.m.
OLD DOG: Saturday, Sep 7, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.
JINPA: Sunday, Sep 8, 2024 at 4:00 p.m.
THARLO: Friday, Sep 13, 2024 at 6:30 p.m.
THE SACRED ARROW: Saturday, Sep 14, 2024 at 6:15 p.m.
BALLOON: Sunday, Sep 15, 2024 at 2:30 p.m.
SNOW LEOPARD: Sunday, Sep 15, 2024 at 5:30 p.m.
The complete schedule for Pema Tseden is posted online at movingimage.org/series/pema-tseden
All screenings take place at the Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35 Ave, Astoria, NY 11106.
Tickets are available in advance online at www.movingimage.org
or at the Museum’s admissions desk.
Press Contacts:
Jessica Almereyda, Icarus Films:
jessica@icarusfilms.com
Tomoko Kawamoto, MoMI:
tkawamoto@movingimage.org