A new film analyzes the decades-long Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) occupation of Tibet, and questions whether Tibetans will resort to violence after the passing of the Dalai Lama as a means for freedom.
“Crouching Snow Lion Rising Dragon” premiered online on March 10, 2021, to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising. After a festival run, it will release later this year.
Pema Dhondup Gakyil, a Nepali filmmaker based in Los Angeles, produced and directed the film over a period of two decades “because some of the witnesses and officials that saw the events of March 10, 1959 are no more and their accounts were recorded in late 1990s,” he said in a statement.
“The greatest achievement of the Dalai Lama for Tibet’s struggle is his conscious effort to keep the struggle peaceful and non-violent. Will it be the same after he is gone?” Gakyil said.
With the Dalai Lama in his 86th year, many Tibetans question the future relationship between Tibet and the CCP and whether the conflict will turn violent.
“No one wants conflict and confrontation and His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] says in the film that no human problem has been resolved through violence, so it would be unthinkable if Tibetans took that path after he is gone,” Gakyil said.
“[The] Dalai Lama has single handedly held the community together, but we can see ordinary Tibetans are getting frustrated with the impasse in the effort between Tibet and China to find an amicable solution to decades of occupation.”
Gakyil has made several documentaries and short films with his production company, Clear Mirror Pictures. He wrote, co-produced, and directed a previous Tibetan feature film, “We’re No Monks.” He has several films in development in Hollywood and Bollywood.
The film was shot mostly in India and the United States.
