The LightDirector: Gonpo Tashi
Synopsis: In this short piece, young filmmaker Gonpo Tashi captured the moments of various lights in the campus life at Jigme Gyaltsen Tibetan College. |
The SearchDirector: Losang Nyima
Synopsis: Inspired by a Tibetan proverb, Losang Nyima devoted this short piece to a close observation of the life of ants. This film was made on the campus of Jigme Gyaltsen Tibetan College. |
The song of homeDirector: Bey Choesam
Synopsis: This short documentary offers the young filmmaker's loving contemplation of his family's life on the summer pastures in the high mountains. Being a singer himself, Bey Choesam presented a musical flow in his documentation of daily life. |
Gonpo Tashi
Hello everyone! My name is Gongpo Tashi, and I am 23 years old this year. I am from beautiful Aba prefecture in Sichuan province, where the snow-covered grasslands taught me to be cheerful and easy-going, as well as how to be kind. I graduated from the filmmaking course at Jigme Gyaltsen Tibetan College in Golok, Qinghai province. In July 2018, I participated in a NGO-sponsored “National Tibetan Youth Development Program,” for which I went through a tough interview process and was selected to go to Beijing for the training program. Since then, in different cities and doing different jobs, I have been chasing my dreams.
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Losang Nyima
I studied how to make documentary films at school while studying many other subjects. I graduated from Jigme Gyaltsen Tibetan College in 2018. I have been spending time in my pastoral home since graduation. I plan to continue making documentary films in the future. Thinking back, one thing I regret about filming The Search is that when I was filming the ants carrying a large worm into their nest, the school bell rang to start the classes. At that moment, for convenience, I picked up the worm, put it next to the ant nest, and filmed.
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Bey Choesam
Hello everyone! My name is Bey Choesam and I’m 26 years old this year. I come from Yushu, Qinghai province. I love nature, and I like to use my photography to get closer to the warmth and beauty of nature. My major was filmmaking, and now I am back in my hometown offering film and video services. At the same time, I have opened a small recording studio to use voice to capture perspectives on nature. I really believe that my current job is my life-long dream and that it is one of my most rewarding jobs where I can use voice and sounds to express myself. My work is like being bilingual in Chinese and Tibetan, where eyes and ears are connected. Of course when filming everyone will make some mistakes and miss some beautiful shots and confront some irregularities, but we all need to keep paying attention to the smallest of images! Zoom in, and zoom in again!!
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Through the looking glassDirector: CUI Yi 2017, 14:10 min Synopsis: On a high-land Tibetan pasture, a screening event unfolds quietly. Monks, herdsmen and their families gather by the screen to observe life captured through their own lenses. |
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CUI YiCUI Yi was born and raised in northwest China and currently lives between her homeland and North America. Before starting to make films, she worked in conservation ecology. She received her MFA in Film and Video from York University in Toronto. Her body of work consists of experimental, documentary, narrative and essay films. The constant search for the poetics in the cinematic medium is a recurring theme in her work. In recent years, she has been living and working in Tibetan communities to support programs in autoethnographic filmmaking and cultural revitalization. Yi is currently an assistant professor at Colgate University.
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Ayturghan Hassanova Director: Mukaddas Mijit
2017, 3 min 55secs 
Photo credit: Lisa Ross
Synopsis: Born in a rich family near the Ili river, legendary Uyghur singer Ayturghan Hasanova’s peaceful childhood is broken apart by the sudden arrest and execution of her father by the authorities. Being her only way of dealing with her harsh reality, she uses her voice to navigate through a long and complex life. |
Momam: The Great Woman Director: Mukaddas Mijit
2012, 14min 26secs 
Synopsis: “The boy gave all three bread to the poor and didn’t keep any for himself. Then a snake flew out of his bag into the sky.” --Rehime Kamal A video diary about my grandmother. |
"Morning Feeling" and Perhat TursunDirector: Mukaddas Mijit
2021, 7min 35secs 
Photo credit: Sulu.artco
Synopsis: A visual essay on a contemporary Uyghur poem about isolation, physical and psychological oppression. |
Photo credit for background image: Lisa Ross
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Mukaddas MijitMukaddas Mijit is an ethnomusicologist, filmmaker, and performer born and raised in the Uyghur homeland. Beginning in June 2021, she will be a Postdoctoral fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Centre for East Asian Studies). She moved to Paris in 2003 and obtained her MA at the University of Sorbonne on Sufi practice in the Uyghur Region, and was awarded her PhD in ethnomusicology at the University of Paris Nanterre in 2015, researching the “Staging of Uyghur Music and Dance.” She has published several articles in edited volumes and peer reviewed journals including Cahier d’Ethnomusicologie. She taught Visual Anthropology at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès while working on film projects about Uyghur culture and arts. Since 2019, Mukaddas has been involved in a research program entitled "Towards an alternative model of heritage as sustainable development: Meshrep in Kazakhstan (SOAS)" and several creative projects in Paris and in New York. She has also made four substantial documentaries and a series of short films on Uyghur culture and is currently working on her first fiction film.
Research project: uyghur meshrep project ( SOAS ) Art projects: everybody is gone ( Performance & installation ) asman Collective |
in Dialogue
Zoom conversation with Mukaddas Mijit, Aynur Kadir, and Jenny Chio.
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AYNUR KADIRAynur Kadir (Uyghur) is an assistant professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on practices and theories of design and the study of interactive multimedia in the humanities, ethnographic practice and museum curation. As a Native of southern Xinjiang who was educated in the Uyghur language, she has extensive knowledge of written and oral Uyghur literature, musical traditions and cultural practices. She has documented and digitized an extensive amount of Uyghur folklore, festivals and other endangered cultural heritage. She also has been working with local communities in the Pacific Northwest and in the Six Nation Territories in Canada to develop digital media that document, manage, safeguard, and represent Indigenous cultural heritage. The ultimate goal of her research is to conceptualize the poetics and politics of interactive media in the representation of traditional knowledge and memory; challenge knowledge hierarchy and facilitate the accessibility of traditional or academic knowledge to the wider public; decolonize digital technologies; and contribute to the ethical use of new media through collaboration.
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