“The place where the story took place is none other than my home village, where the mountains and waters have always haunted my dreams. I long to tell the true stories-in my own way-that have come up in my home village, to disclose the real looks of her, and to reveal the genuine conditions of life of the people there. What the film endeavors to depict is the unconscious change that has been going on under the surface of the seeming silence in the relatively secluded land, a reciprocal infiltration between tradition and modernism…” –Writer/Director Wanma-caidan
The Silent Holy Stones, Tibetan Director Wanma-caidan’s dramatic feature debut, is a Chinese production made on location in a Tibetan village. The film follows a young lama assigned for Tibetan New Year to attend to the seven-year-old Living Buddha of a mountain monastery. There are echoes here of The Cup (Khyentse Norbu, 1999), as the young lamas try to balance their strict training with explorations of the outside world through the novelty of television. The Silent Holy Stones has the immediacy of a documentary, and writer/Director Wanma-caidan succeeds in offering an insider’s view of everyday life in his home town.
The Silent Holy Stones (Lhing vjags kyi ma ni rdo vbum)
Director: Wanma-caidan (Tibetan: Pema Tseten)
Tibet/China / 2005 / 35mm / 102 min / Tibetan with English subtitles
US PREMIERE
Sunday, April 23 at 4:00 pm
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
Saturday, April 29 at 1:15 pm
Thursday, May 4 at 8:00 pm
Kabuki 8 Theatres, San Francisco
Tickets available now at San Francisco Film Society or by phone at 925.866.9559.
Purchase tickets in person at:
Kabuki 8 Theatre
1881 Post Street (at Fillmore)
Virgin Megastore
2 Stockton Street, 2nd floor
