Ottawa Tibet Film Festival

The Ottawa Tibetan Community Association is organizing the 4th Ottawa Tibet Film Festival on Sunday, March 20th 2016 at the Mayfair Theatre.The festival’s goal is to raise awareness in Ottawa about Tibet: its culture, its religion, and its people. The 2016 Film Festival will give Ottawans a glimpse of what is happening in modern Tibet. Although there will be a variety of topics addressed in the films, the focus of this year’s lineup is the toll that resource extraction and development is taking on the rivers, grasslands and mountain areas of Tibet. Tibetan traditional food will be available for purchase and cultural performances (songs, dance) will occur throughout the day. We look forward to welcoming you at our festival.

SESSION 1:                                                                        

Noon: opening speeches and cultural performance

12:30 – “Singing in diaspora”  (11 min) Sabchu rimpoche, 2015. Documentary. The struggles of a young Tibetan-Canadian activist over the span of three months, as she fights to maintain her cultural identity in a diasporic community.

12:50 –  “Embrace”  (50 min) Dan Smyer Yu and Pema Tashi, 2011. Ethnographic documentary. Through the narratives of a father and a son, this film illustrates both the transcendental and inter-sentient dimensions of Tibetan sacred sites and of their ecological significance. It documents a ritualized relationship of people and the place of their dwelling and natural surroundings.

SESSION 2:

2:30- “Pad yatra, A green odyssey”  (72 min) Wendy J.N. Lee, 2013. Documentary. Viewers are invited to join the adventure of 700 people, trekking across the Himalayas with a call to save the planet’s “3rd Pole,” a glacial region now devastated by the climate chaos associated with global warming.

4:15-  Presentation /discussion about current developments and the destruction of the environment in Tibet with Michael Buckley.

4:40 –  “Plundering Tibet” (25 min) Michael Buckley, 2014. Documentary.

A personal take on mining in Tibet. How much can an ecosystem take before it collapses? Plundering Tibet is a short documentary about the dire consequences of China’s ruthless mining in Tibet. As a Canadian filmmaker, the narrator has a personal take on this because of the involvement of Canadian companies in mining in Tibet-and the railway to Lhasa.

5:10 – Panel Discussion about Canadian companies currently mining in Tibet: What can we do, as Canadian citizens to ensure the respect of Human Rights and preservation of the environment ? (until 6pm)

Guest-speakers: Carole Samdup, Executive Director of the Canada Tibet Committee, and Penelope Simons Professor at faculty of Law of the Ottawa University.

SESSION 3:

6:45pm – “Kekexili, the Mountain Patrol”. (90 min). Chuan Lu .2004. Fiction

A moving true story about volunteers protecting antelope against poachers in the severe mountains of Tibet.

Trailers:

Embrace (55 min) https://vimeo.com/43804906  2011 by Dan Smyer Yu and Pema Tashi

Singing in Diaspora: short film (11 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Ic5_swk44

Pad Yatra, a green odyssey (75 min) http://www.padyatrafilm.com/#trailer

Plundering Tibet (20 min) by Mickael Buckley.  https://vimeo.com/99806095

“Kekexili, the Mountain Patrol”. (90 min). Chuan Lu: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3835298073

Presented by the Ottawa Tibetan Community Association.

Ottawa Tibet Film Festival

Web: http://www.OttawaTibetFilmFestival.com

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