Documentaries:
NOMAD'S LAND - IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF NICOLAS BOUVIER
Switzerland 2008,
Director: Gael Metroz,
Documentary, 90 min
Shooting locations: Turkey, Iran,
Himalayan areas of Pakistan,
Afghanistan, China, India;
Sri Lanka, Switzerland
One thinks that one is going to
make a journey, yet soon it is the
journey that makes or unmakes
you.
L'Usage du Monde, Nicolas Bouvier
The young Swiss director Gael Metroz takes the road alone, without a team, camera in
hand, in the footsteps of the author Nicolas Bouvier. He discovers that the East is no longer
the almost carefree land recounted by the writer in the Fifties in his book “L’Usage du
Monde”: Iran in crises, Pakistan troubled by tribal violence, Talibans, civil war in Sri Lanka.
This world which Bouvier had the use of seems to have disappeared under the veil of time.
Disappointed the director decides to leave the main roads traced by the famous Topolino
and continues with the nomads. Following his own road on the map of chance, Gael
Metroz reveals the writers philosophy of travel.
BLINDSIGHT
Tibet/Nepal 2006,
Director: Lucy Walker (UK),
Documentary, 104 min
Tibetan/German/English,
with English and Estonian subtitles
Shooting location: Tibet, China.
Winner: Audience Award -Best Film,
Berlin Festival 2007
Audience Award of
Best Documentary - AFI film festival 2006,
Palm Springs Film Festival 2007
Nominated: Best Documentary -
Brithish Independent Film Awards 2006
“Just because you lose your sight,
doesn’t mean you lose your vision.”
- Blind climber Erik Weihenmayer
Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, BLINDSIGHT follows the
gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers who set out to climb the 23,000-foot Lhakpa
Ri on the north side of Mount Everest. The dangerous journey soon becomes a
seemingly impossible challenge -- made all the more remarkable by the fact that the
teenagers are blind.
Believed by many Tibetans to be possessed by demons, the children are shunned by
their parents, scorned by their villages and rejected by society. Rescued by Sabriye
Tenberken, a blind educator and adventurer who established the first and only school
for the blind in Tibet, the students invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik
Weihenmayer to visit their school after learning about his conquest of Everest. Erik
arrives in Lhasa and inspires Sabriye and her students to let him lead them higher
than they have ever been before.
As they asccend the breathtaking heights of the mountain,the team face many obstacles,
including disagreement amongst the leaders as to how to achieve their goal -
and even more important - what their goal really is. The resulting 3-week journey is beyond anything any
of them could have predicted. The teenagers discover they can do things they never thought possible.
SHINING SPIRIT
Canada/Tibet 2009,
Director: Karen McDiarmid (Canada),
Documentary, 34 min
Language: English,
Subtitles: English/Estonian
Shooting locations:
Amdo region of Tibet,
Canada, India
Shining Spirit, filmed in Canada, India and
Tibet
(2006-2009) documents a recording
project
that
brings together the family of
Jamyang Yeshi,
through music and the use
of multi-tracking
recording technology,
overcoming thousands
of miles between
them.
With the help of western
friends,
Jamyang, in exile in Canada, and his
brother, Tsundue, in exile
in the United
States,
join voices with the family they left
behind in
Tibet.
For the first time in over
15 years, they
sing together once again.
Shining Spirit
is a testament to the power
of music, the
resilience
of the Tibetan
culture, and
the
enduring bond
of a family
separated by
politics and geography.
RIDING SOLO TO THE TOP
OF THE WORLD
India 2006,
Director: Gaurav Jani,
Documentary, 90 min
Shooting locations: Ladakh (India)
English
11 Awards and
21 Film
festivals including
Best Documentary at the
National Film Awards
Riding Solo... is a film about filmmaker Gaurav Jani's solo motorcycle journey from Mumbai to one
of the remotest places in the world, the Changthang Plateau in Ladakh, bordering China. As a one-man film unit,
he astonishes you, filming the landscape he passes by and the people he interacts with, capturing moments
of beauty, pain, love, hardship, self doubt and spiritual triumphs.
Riding Solo to the Top of the World, in essence, is a film about a journey that begins as an adventure and
ends with the man, Gaurav Jani, seeking the person within.
THE DAY MY GOD DIED
Nepal/India/USA 2003,
Director: Andrew Levine,
Documentary, 70 min
Language: English/Hindi
Subtitles: English/Estonian
The Day My God Died is a hard-hitting documentary exposing the South Asian sex trade, in which young women and girls sometimes
as young as 8 are taken away from their homes to word in the botherls of India's big cities. Subdued, broken, anonymous, they are kept as property
by pimps and madams, usually in collusion with the police. Andrew Levine's film pulls no punches in showing the brutality of this industry. But it also
offers a ray of hope - the tireless and devoted activists who are working to save women from a life of captivity and help them back into society.
The film introduces us to the heroes of the movement to abolish child sex slavery – non-profit organizations which rescue and
care for former sex slaves. Some victims have emerged to form their own underground railway out of slavery.
BRIDE'S SONG
Russia 2009,
Director: Evgenia Trifonova, VGIK,
Documentary, 10 min
no dialogue
Shooting location: Ladakh (India)
This lyrical short film shows the wedding ceremony in Ladakh - which is arranged according to
the old Ladakh tradition of taking the bride from her relatives' house and bringing her to the village
where groom's family rooted. It imitates stealing of a bride, though everything is happening due
to agreement between both families. The form of traditions, ceremonies, and rites have hardly changed
from the old times, but there is a great new essence which can be symbolised by shining smile
of the young wife at the end - young people have gained the possibility to choose a spouse and
make decision of marriage by themselves in this region of the Himalayas.
Motion pictures:
LITTLE TERRORIST
India 2004,
Director: Ashvin Kumar,
Short Drama, 15 min
Nominated:
European Academy Awards 2005
and
Academy Awards Oscar 2005
Winner:
Grand Prize Tehran Intl Short Film Festival,
Best Film Flanders Intl Film Festival,
1st prize Montreal World Film Festival,
Best Film Manhattan Intl Short Film Festival
The Little Terrorist is a reminder that humanity and compassion can shine even in the most inhumane circumstances.
It tells the story of a Pakistani Muslim 10 year's old boy who accidentally crosses the Pakistani-Indian
border into India after chasing the ball in a cricket match. He ends up in a strange country that regards him as a terrorist.
The old orthodox Hindu Brahmin takes him in and hides him from the Indian soldiers - a great risk to himself.
However, traditions and prejudices about Muslims remain an obstacle in the relationship between Hindu family and the boy.
Aged Brahmin has to re-examine his opinion of Pakistanis, who, prior to 1947, were his own coutrymen.
Ultimately, humanity triumphs over prejudice. This symbolic story of hope, based on the real plot,
is a tale of human solidarity conquering all artificial boundaries.
APATANI FOLK TALE
India 2009,
Director: Hage D. Appa,
Epic legend, 30 min
Language: Apatani
Subtitles: English/Estonian
This folk tale is one of the legents of the Apatani tribe of Himalayan belt which passed down from generation to generation and is still told today.
This is a story of love and affection of an orphan brother and sister, as well as their peril and misadventure during the journey to TIbet under
the mythical influence of the place which is still regarded as the same today. The priests still chant and offer sacrifices for evading its evil,
but the truth behind its curse is still unknown.
