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White Crane!
Tsangyang Gyatso, the 6th Dalai Lama 
White Crane Films was formed in 1990 in London by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam. Ritu was born in New Delhi. She finished her schooling in London and did her undergraduate studies in Delhi University. She then did an MFA in Film and Video from the California College of the Arts in Oakland. Tenzing was born in Darjeeling in India to Tibetan refugee parents. After graduating from Delhi University, he worked for a year in the Tibetan Government-in-exile in Dharamsala. He then specialized in documentary filmmaking at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley. Ritu and Tenzing’s first film together was their student effort, The New Puritans: The Sikhs of Yuba City, which was completed in 1985. It won a number of awards in America and was broadcast on national PBS and the Learning Channel. In 1987, they moved to London to help the Meridian Trust, a Buddhist film and video archive, develop its archives. As part of their efforts, they documented on video a number of historic trips made by the Dalai Lama, including the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Norway. In 1990, they made The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche. The film was screened at numerous international film festivals and was broadcast throughout the world. It also had a successful theatrical release in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the USA. Their subsequent films, some of which were commissioned by the BBC, include The Trials of Telo Rinpoche, A Stranger in My Native Land and The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet. Their most recent work is a video installation, Some Questions on the Nature of Your Existence, which was commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna. In 1996, they moved to Dharamsala in India to be closer to the exile Tibetan community about whom they planned to make a feature film. That project, Dreaming Lhasa, was shot in the winter of 2003 with a predominantly non-professional cast and completed in January 2005. It was executive produced by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Gere, and had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2005. It has since screened at various film festivals around the world, and has had a theatrical release in the USA, Switzerland and Holland. Tibet, in all its dimensions, has been the main focus of Ritu and Tenzing’s work. Through their films, they have attempted to document, question, and reflect on, the issues of exile, identity, culture and politics that confront the Tibetan people. While continuing to further their documentary and feature film work in this direction, they are also exploring various new media options, including video installations and archive-based projects. Ritu and Tenzing have two children, Mila and Maya, and are currently based in New Delhi and Dharamsala. |