Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion Zürich   Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion Zürich
Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion Zürich
 
 
A Tibetan family who has lived in exile in the Engadine for 35 years considers its history and its presence in the media. A portrait.
Tibet was occupied by China in 1949, ten years later the Dalai Lama, religious and secular leader of the Tibetan people, took refuge in India. A hundredthousands of people followed their leader. Part of them, round 1500 persons, got asylum in different communes in Switzerland. So a small Tibetan community developped in Engadine, specifically in Samedan, from 1963 on.

These Tibetan projections  as soon becomes obvious  are our own idealized, preconceived notions of an alien way of life and religion. () Samir is familiar with this situation and can interpret it sensitively, and not only because of his own personal history. He also knows how to express it, using its own particular version of split screen techniques. () He carefully concentrates attention on a deep-black quadrant, focusing on one person, then extends it in virtuoso manner to the entire surface of the screen when, beyond the blurred borderlines, skilfully dosed background information appears, now as an explanation, now as no more than a distant memory.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
 
TV documentary, 1998
24 min., BetaSP
Original version: Roman, german with german subtitles

Written & directed by: Samir
Photography: Jara Uhricek
Editor: Samir and Ian Mathys
Sound Design & Music: Peter Bräker

Production: Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion im Auftrag des Televisiun Rumantsch TvR
Mitarbeiter TvR: Gian-Andrea Reinalter

Commissioning editors: Peter Egloff (TvR)