From Dhondup Wangchen and Golog Jigme: Tibetan filmmakers of ‘Leaving Fear Behind’.
We are writing to you today as Tibetan filmmakers from Tibet who paid with our freedom for telling the truth about our homeland by film.
In 2008, we made a documentary called Leaving Fear Behind featuring everyday Tibetans speaking openly about their lives under Chinese occupation. The entire film was authentic, raw and truthful. Made on a tight budget using cheap cameras hidden in jackets and bags.
We paid a very high price for raising the critical voices of the Tibetan people inside Tibet: Dhondup was arrested, tortured, and spent six years in prison. Golog was arrested, tortured, and forced to flee for his life.
We both carry the scars on our bodies, minds, and in our families and friends.
When we heard that the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF) was showing a program called “Xizang Panorama” thus using China’s propaganda word for Tibet and screening films that glorify the Chinese occupation as a “peaceful liberation,” we felt the same kind of heartbreak and betrayal that we have known before.
For over a decade, KIMFF has distinguished itself as a vital platform for mountain voices, particularly those challenging dominant narratives about high-altitude communities. The festival’s commitment to exploring “issues ranging from the political determination of mountain communities, to the emergence of identity politics” has made it a beacon for storytelling from the world’s most contested landscapes. This year’s theme, “Fractured Voices, Framing Narratives,” promised continued dedication to amplifying those perspectives.
Instead, the festival has handed narrative control to the very forces seeking to silence those voices. “Xizang” is not the name of our homeland. It is the name the Chinese government uses to erase our identity. It is not neutral. It is not respectful. It is part of a political campaign to rewrite history and everything Tibetan people stand for.
And the films being shown in this program are not harmless stories. They are propaganda. They tell the world that Tibet is free and happy under Chinese rule, while in reality, our people are under constant surveillance, our language is being eradicated, and our children are being separated from their families and sent to colonial boarding schools.
So we are urging KIMFF, and anyone who loves film, truth and justice, to think very carefully about continuing with the so-called “Xizang Panorama”.
We urge KIMFF to:
1. Cancel the “Xizang Panorama” program immediately.
2. Commit to inviting and screening authentic Tibetan voices and films in the future.
This isn’t just about politics. It’s about whether a film festival will be used to spread lies and remake history. But it’s not too late, you still have time to right this wrong and stand on the right side of history.
Tibetans have had their voices stolen again and again. We are asking you: don’t be part of that.
Please stand with the truth. Stand with Tibet.
Sincerely,
Dhondup Wangchen Golog Jigme
Tibetan filmmakers
Leaving Fear Behind (2008)
5 Responses
Nepla is Chna’s proxy, their prime minister said any retaliation against China will not be tolerated in Nepal. Nepal’s government is disgusting. They steal from their own people.
The Tibetan people wholeheartedly support Dhondup Wangchen and Golok Jigme’s DEMAND TO STOP FORTHWITH THE SCREENING OF CCP PROPAGANDA AT KIMFF! It is an attempt TO AIRBRUSH Chinese illegal and brutal occupation of Tibet! By expunging the name of Tibet and replacing it with a Chinese nomenclature indicate the sinister of the propaganda!!! Anybody, who has an IQ that of a mosquito will understand that TIBET is the name of the country behind Mount Everest since time immemorial. Just think, if the Chinese call Nepal by a Chinese name and erase the name of your country for good, how would you feel about it? Would you be very angry or would you be happy? When the Chinese claimed whole of Mount Everest in the 1960s, Nepal sent a delegation to talk on the Nepal -Tibet border including Mt Everest. The Chinese team claimed whole of Mt Everest and were in no mood to discuss about it. Then the Nepali officials asked the Chinese what do they call Mt Everest in mandarin. The Chinese had no answer! The Nepalese told the Chinese “we call it sagarmata”. Since then the Chinese officials didn’t raise questions over Nepal’s claim over Mt Everest. Every nation and its people have their names edged in history and TIBET is the name of the BUDDHIST NATION high in the Himalayas which has a living history since 127 BC. It has been illegally and brutally occupied by communist China since 1949/50. IT IS UNDER BRUTAL MILITARY OCCUPATION. THE TIBETAN PEOPLE ARE FACING THE SAME DESOLATION AND BRUTALITY LIKE GAZA UNDER ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION. COMMUNIST CHINA IS COMMITTING CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN OCCUPIED TIBET AS THE ERASING OF THE COUNTRY’S NAME TIBET CLEARLY INDICATE!!! DON’T BE A SUPPORTER OF GENOCIDE!!! DON’T BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE!!! STOP SCREENING CCP PROPAGANDA REPLETE WITH CCP PROPAGANDA MINUS THE REAL NAME OF THE COUNTRY WHERE IT IS PURPORTED TO HAVE BEEN SHOT!!!
Please cancel the film Xizang Panorama immediately. It is not a true representation of occupied Tibet.
When I became a young beginner Buddhist, I was introduced in the same time to the plight which felt on Tibetan in the 60’s ; and this pain has never been cured, event becomint worst with the Mao’era. Today, Chinese has learned they could make money with Buddhist and the try to look nice mimicking Buddhist culture. But at the bottom, nothing has changed. They took a territory which doesn’t belong to them and have not the slightest leaning toward giving it back. Shame on you Master Robber XI Ping!
I totally agree with Dhondup Wangchen La and Golog Jigme La, and I urge KIMFF to cancel CCP’s propaganda films. Xi jinping is trying to wipe out Tibetan identity and culture. Why is he sending Tibetan children to colonial boarding school in China and deprived of them learning Tibetan language and separated from their parents? This is called cultural genocide, nothing else. The world should pay attention what CCP is doing in Tibet, East Turkistan, inner Mongolia and also in Hong Kong.