Skip to main content
The Boys and the Donkey film image; people looking at golden statue of a god

The Boys and the Donkey

少年与驴

VIFF Short Forum

Canadian Premiere

In the Tibetan Plateau, four friends roughhouse with a neighbour’s donkey, leading to a nasty scratch on one of their faces. They resolve to punish the beast.

 

Supported by

    

Media Partner

Community Partner

Director
Cast

Gurgon Gyal, Kundrup Dorjee, Norbu Wangyal, Takbum Gyal

Credits
Country of Origin

China

Year

2023

Language

In Tibetan with English subtitles

Film Contact
Content Warning

Animal cruelty

18+
21 min
Cinemas of Asia Drama Family Relations Shorts

Credits & Director

Producer

Tsemdo Thar

Screenwriter

Tsering Yangjyab

Tsering Yangjyab headshot; The Boys and the Donkey director

Tsering Yangjyab

Tsering Yangjyab was born in 1991 in a remote mountain village on the Tibetan Plateau. He graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 2012. In 2021, he won the Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 11th Beijing International Film Festival for his cinematography of The Lost (2021). The Boys and the Donkey (2024) is his debut short film.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Steal This Story, Please!

Dir. Carl Deal & Tia Lessin
101 min

Urgent, provocative and unexpectedly funny, Steal This Story, Please! is a portrait of Amy Goodman, the host of the long-running progressive news show, Democracy Now!

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music as Realized by Aram Bajakian, Stefan Maier and Anju Singh

156 min

Guitarist Aram Bajakian takes up the challenge issued to him by Lou Reed many years ago to perform the controversial noise album, Metal Machine Music. Plus Lou Reed performing Berlin from 2006.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Amrum

Dir. Fatih Akin
93 min

Twelve-year-old Nanning (Jasper Billerbeck) sets himself a mission to secure bread and honey for his mother to snap her out of her depression. It is 1945. The war is all but lost, and such luxuries are not easy to find on the remote island of Amrum...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

M

Dir. Fritz Lang
110 min

A sophisticated and gripping suspense drama about the hunt for a child murderer, played with disturbing compassion by the great Peter Lorre. M was Fritz Lang's first sound film, and you can sense his excitement at the possibilities.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Wizard of the Kremlin

Dir. Olivier Assayas
156 min

This sleekly speculative political drama traces the inexorable rise to power of Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) through his unerring grasp of modern propaganda tech.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Blue Heron

Dir. Sophy Romvari
90 min

In the late 1990s, eight-year-old Sasha and her Hungarian immigrant family relocate to a new home on Vancouver Island. Their fresh start is interrupted by increasingly dangerous behaviour from Jeremy, the family’s oldest child.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema