The Search is a road movie wrapped around three love stories. A director and crew drive through the Amdo region of Qinghai looking for local singers and actors to star in their filmed version of the classic Tibetan opera Prince Drime Kundun. They encounter a woman who would be perfect for the role of Drime Kundun’s wife Mande Zangmo, but she has one condition: the crew must help her find her former lover, who is now a schoolteacher in a different town. Along the way, a businessman along for the ride recounts his own sad love story as she silently listens, her face half-covered in a kerchief, leaving not much more than her infinitely eloquent eyes exposed.
Shot in exquisitely designed long takes, this brilliant film explores how stories can be told and how love can be articulated in a culture whose traditional underpinnings, under pressure, are undergoing fundamental changes. It hints at the possibility of capturing, in cinema, an evanescent spiritual beauty, almost but not quite beyond reach.
May 16: Intro by Compassionate Light curator Shelly Kraicer
Community Partner
Pema Tseden
Manla Kyab, Tsondrey, Lumo Tso
China
2009
In Tibetan with English subtitles
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Credits
Screenwriter
Pema Tseden
Cinematography
Gyal Sonthar
Editor
Chen Hai Ling, Benjamin Illos and Zhou Xing
Also in This Series
Tibetan director Pema Tseden became one of the most remarkable filmmakers of this century, revolutionizing the representation of Tibet and Tibetans and sharing his visions of authentic Tibetan life with the entire film-going world by reimagining how narrative cinematic fiction could operate within so-called “Chinese minority cinema”.