Director: Jigme Trinley
Ethnicity: Tibetan
Name in native language: འཇིགས་མེད་འཕྲིན་ལས།
Director’s biography:
Jigme Trinley, Tibetan, young screenwriter and director. He graduated from the Beijing Film Academy with an undergraduate degree in directing. During his school years, he created six short films and participated in productions such as Mr. Six (dir. Guan Hu), Wangdrak’s Rain Boots (dir. Lhapal Gyal), Jinpa and Balloon (dir. Pema Tseden). His short films have been screened at Columbia University, the University of Toronto, and the “Start Unit” in Lhasa. His graduation feature film One and Four and the documentary Mr. Red Shoes are in production.
Jigme Trinley, a rising star of Tibetan cinema, completed his first feature film, One and Four (2021), at the age of 24. It was selected for the main competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival. His father, Pema Tseden, is the most important driver of the new wave of Tibetan cinema in China, and Making Movies on the Plateau (2017) is Jigme Trinley’s documentary following a predominantly Tibetan film crew. The intimacy of the Tibetan filmmakers in this film, and their shared love of cinema, conveys a sense of strength.
Catalogue of work:
Short documentary Geng Nong; short drama Home; short drama One Thought; short documentary Making Movies on the Plateau; short drama Deliverance.
Next project: One and Four, Mr. Red Shoes
Next film project: The Joker’s Pilgrimage (in post-production) 101 Days, Yushu Nangqian to Lhasa, a middle-aged Han Chinese actor’s journey of self-discovery.
DANG HAOYU, aged 43, is a native of Fushun, Northeast China. He graduated from the the acting department of the Central Academy of Drama, Class of ’96. He spent many years in the entertainment industry as an actor, but offended many people because of his straightforwardness. He later turned to creative writing, but also failed to persevere due to various obstacles. After meeting his guru Sadrul Rinpoche, he turned his life’s focus to Tibetan Buddhist practice, practising his heart and taking the vow to kowtow to Lhasa.
In 2020, on 15 July, he travelled from Nangchen County, Yushu, to Lhasa, on pilgrimage. At first, he thought the long kowtow would be easy, thinking that with a persistent heart and a strong body he would be able to complete it, but he encountered difficulties in the preparation stage. He says that it seems that the most important thing about kowtow is not reaching Lhasa, but all these processes.
Along the way, he overcame all external and internal obstacles, realised that the most important thing was the three steps under his feet, and began to respect everything around him, whether unfavourable or helpful, from the bottom of his heart.
Ultimately, he arrived in Lhasa on 23 October 2020, completing a journey of self-growth and discovery.
Item:
I saw Autumn Sonata (1978) in my second year. My previous memories of Bergman’s films were of The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, which I could barely understand. The little girl in this film struggles to be good at the piano in order to get more love and attention from her mother, who is a pianist. She made me think about my relationship with my father, and for the first time I felt a deep connection between film and my life, and began to think about my own life through film.