What Courage Means to Me

Tibetan Children’s Villages I India 2008 I 4 mins

How courage has played a role in the story of young Tibetan who recently escaped into exile.

Tibet: Murder in the Snow

Mark Gould I Australia 2008 I 52 mins I English/Tibetan with English subtitles

Every year around 2,500 Tibetans escape from Tibet by making the dangerous crossing over the Himalayas in the hope of seeing His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India and to attend Tibetan schools or monasteries in exile.

In September 2006, at the 6,000 metre high Nangpa La, a pass linking Tibet to Nepal, several teams of international mountaineers on the Nepalese side witnessed the Chinese border police shooting at a group of Tibetans attempting to escape from Tibet.

One of the Tibetans, 17-year old nun Kelsang Namtso, was shot dead and a number of the others arrested by the Chinese border police. This film retells the story of this tragic incident through interviews with the Tibetans who made it into exile and with some of the mountaineers.

The footage of the shooting filmed by Sergiu Matei, Romanian climber and cameraman, subsequently made headline news the world over.