What Remains of us in Dharamsala

First published: April 29, 2007

 “What remains of us…?” A popular contemporary Tibetan saying, quite often accompanied with humor, sighs, exclamations, resentments, the like and the non-like. Beyond the exiled community’s despair remains a different set of unheard stories of Tibetans, who are stuck within the silent pain-realms of their own geographical homeland, continually being the direct subject of a far too long cultural genocide by foreign occupants.

Photo: Wasfia Nazreen

Thus the award-winning documentary “What Remains of Us” is an experiential journey of dialogues, depicting the visual proof of Tibetans hearing the message of His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama, for many for the first time. This heart-touching message, like a prayer is seen to be resonating deep within each of their beings. This almost-forbidden movie features the journey of Kalsang Dolma, a Canadian-Tibetan woman entering Tibet for the first time with a videotaped message from the Dalai Lama. Those words are then, almost like a suicide-mission, secretly shared with fellow Tibetans from all walks of life.

Kalsang was born on November 15, 1972, in an Indian refugee camp in Hunsur. She left southern India in 1986 with her father and grew up in Montreal. During the making of the movie, Kalsang made four pilgrimages inside Tibet, like they say in their preview- serving as the human passport of the Dalai Lama’s message, along with Canadian Directors Francois PrÈvost and Hugo Latulippe. Her nostalgic Tibetan songs, along with Techung’s peaceful guitar rifts, also accompany some of the melancholic poetic-verses of the moving-image clips.

Dr PrÈvost recently completed a month-long consultation tour in Dharamsala with various NGOs, Human-Rights Institutes, Government-in-Exile Officials and Tibet-support groups, holding thirty-one presentations in total, in order to obtain feedbacks regarding the distribution of this controversial film. It has been three years since the first showing; however, the distribution of the film was carried out with extreme care and caution, in the hope to minimize the risks for the brave Tibetans who voluntarily participated in the film.

From the very beginning, Kalsang Dolma and the Directors urged the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), distributor of the film, to implement security measures. So the film was shown only in closed theaters with surveillance during projections, using night vision technology. The viewers had to go through metal detector so that no camera, mobile or recording device would enter the room, in order to prevent images of the film to reach Beijing.

Unfortunately, because of the prohibiting cost of these measures, the NFB decided to stop distributing the film in 2005. Since then, only private screenings were conveyed.

Nevertheless, “What Remains of Us” was seen by more than one million people so far. It is currently believed that no copies were made as it is not possible to find it on internet. A secretly conducted monitoring inside Tibet confirms that at least 59 participants are safe up to now. Some people were questioned but no one was arrested.

At the time of writing this report, no verdict had been taken regarding the future distribution of ‘What Remains of Us.’ Within this ethical dilemma, one thing is for sure: Dr PrÈvost remains committed to the cause and the people in the film. He will write a report to the National Film Board of Canada about the conclusions of his Consultation Tour, in the hope that the best possible decision about the future distribution of the film may be taken.