Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevari

Yesterday… I went to work out at my gym. Found a New York Times issue from last Thursday next to my leg press machine.

(photo from Ngawang Choephel's Facebook profile pictures)

Today… went through the paper on the D train bound to Brooklyn this morning, and my eyes were attracted  by the title (p A32) ” Tibetan Ex-Prisoner Evokes His Homeland’s Struggle in a Movie”, written by Kirk Semple. The article is about the Tibetan movie director and music scholar Ngawang Choephel (pronounced cheu-FELL), 44, who was in a Chinese prison for six and a half years, lives now in Queens and his movie Tibet in Song which made its theatrical release in New York City at the Cinema Village Theatre last Friday September 24. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2009 where it won the Special Jury Award in the World Documentary Competition. Since then, Tibet in Song has won numerous awards and screened worldwide.

This movie tells of his arrest when he returned to Tibet in 1995 to make a film about the impact of fifty years of Chinese rule on traditional music and dance in Tibet. In 1996, he was sentenced in a secret trial to 18 years in prison for “espionage and counter-revolutionary activities”. The Chinese authorities have not produced evidence to support the charges against him. But fortunately his case received international attention, and supported by musicians, such as Paul McCartney and Annie Lennox. In 2002 he was released on “medical parole”  after 6 years in jail.

At my office I searched for the trailer of Tibet in Song and here you are:

About the goal of this movie I would like to quote Choephel: ” We have been telling our stories for over 50 years – the same story over and over and over…’The Chinese did this to me, did that to me.’…Sharing my experience and being a voice for my friends in Tibet. Will it help? I think it will. But will it solve the problem? No.”