Cinema - Sinema

All Screenings Pob Dangosiad

WOW! - The Search for Shangri-la

Dhondup Wangchen, Tibet 1922, 80 mins

Life in Tibet from the 1920s to the 1940s is vividly captured in this selection of extraordinarily rare footage from the BFI National Archive. The first film was taken during the 1922 attempt to climb Mount Everest. Subsequently British political officers undertook diplomatic missions – one such visit witnessed the Installation of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in Lhasa. Home movie cameras recorded these experiences, capturing ceremonial events, landscapes, flora and fauna. These films now provide unique evidence of the colourful customs and Tibetan traditions lost after the devastation of the Chinese invasion. Accompanied by a specially commissioned score, these images are poignant testimony and a vital record of that lost world.