The Film School of the China Academy of Art released an obituary on the afternoon of May 8, and the well-known Tibetan director, screenwriter and producer Wan Ma Tsedan, died of illness at the age of 53.
No one expected that he, who was still posting in the circle of friends the day before to encourage young filmmakers, is now separated from our yin and yang.
As he inadvertently predicted by an old craftsman in the movie "Quiet Mani Stone": "Wealth is like dew in the grass, and life is like a candle in the wind." This is impermanence, you see I'm fine today, maybe tomorrow won't be there. ”
Today, Sister Pickpocket will look back on his film career and remember this artist who is committed to the development of Tibetan film.
【1】
In 1969, Wan Ma Caidan was born in Qinghai's Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and graduated from Northwest University for Nationalities and Beijing Film Academy. He is the first Tibetan director from the directing department of the Beijing Film Academy and the first Tibetan director in the history of Chinese cinema.
As a Tibetan-language filmmaker, he plays a pivotal role in the Chinese film industry and is one of the few directors in China who focuses on Tibetan narratives.
His films focus on the characters in Tibet, conveying the absurdity in the fusion of secular culture and Tibetan culture from a painful and tragic perspective, showing the contradictions and hesitations between faith, soul and reality of individuals during this period.
There is a proverb in the industry that new directors should focus on the first three works. If he passes this challenge, then his subsequent films will not be much worse.
Wan Ma Tseidan is the one who successfully cleared the customs.
"Quiet Mani Stone", "Looking for Jimei Genden" and "Old Dog" are known as his "hometown trilogy", and the delicate narration of the customs and customs of his hometown in the film has touched many fans.
After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy in 2004, he returned to Tibet to shoot his first feature film, "Quiet Mani Stone".
This film is the first pure Tibetan language film directed and filmed in Tibet by a Tibetan director in China's century-old film history, and has been highly praised by the famous Iranian film master Abbas, and is praised by the industry as the pioneer of Tibetan native language films in China's century-old film history.
His video style, starting from the work "Quiet Mani Stone", is slow-paced, fixed-shot, without fierce contradictions, and the genre is between documentary and feature film.
The film was shot in pure Tibetan, and the film team and cast members were mostly native Tibetan-speakers, which made his film intuitively present people with relatively real daily life in Tibetan areas for the first time, and influenced the creation of many subsequent Tibetan directors.
The protagonist of "Quiet Mani Stone" is a little lama, and the film tells a fragment of his life during the Spring Festival holiday. The little lama and the little living Buddha like ordinary children like to stay in front of the TV and watch various programs, but the monastic TV can only receive news and the teachings of Prince Tomomi Genden.
After returning to his hometown, the little lama was fascinated by watching "Journey to the West" and went to the video hall to experience it, and his fascination with new things made him no longer interested in edification stories, and the collision of old and new cultures was subtly displayed in the preferences of a little monk.
The film quickly attracted the attention of the film industry, and won many awards such as the Golden Rooster Award for Best Director's Debut, the Best Director Award of the Asian Newcomer Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and the "Special Jury Award" of the Golden Deer Award at the Changchun Film Festival in China.
The second feature film "Looking for Wisdom and Beauty Genden" directly won the Golden Goblet Award and the Jury Prize in the main competition of the Shanghai Film Festival. At the same time, he was nominated for the Golden Leopard Award at the Locarno International Film Festival.
The film tells the story of a director and photographer who goes to a Tibetan area to find an actor to play Prince Tomomi Genden, but is persuaded by a girl playing a concubine to embark on a journey to find her ex-boyfriend, and witnesses several emotional stories of tradition and modernity.
The film takes us on a journey to find our roots in the form of a road movie. Along the way, they pass by villages, temples, and towns, and see disappearing cultures and traditions, making the original intention of finding the protagonist of Tibetan opera seem even more ironic and absurd.
Because after watching "In Search of Zhimei Genden", Sister Pickpocket understood exactly how the lama chanted the sutra and how the Tibetans sang plays.
2011's "Old Dog", through the story of an old man and a Tibetan mastiff, shows the perseverance and determination of Tibetans in the face of the interests and ugliness of modern society.
At the end of the 90s of the 20th century, somewhere in Tibet. The son plans to sell the family's old Tibetan mastiff to a dog dealer in the village, but the father insists on keeping the old dog and recovers his son and the Tibetan mastiff on the way.
Next, the old man hid the dog in the mountains. However, the Tibetan mastiffs released on the mountain were once again sold to dog dealers and were about to be transported inland as pets. The son clashed with dog traffickers over his return to the Tibetan mastiff and was eventually detained by the police. In desperation, his elderly father had to choose to personally end the life of this Tibetan mastiff.
This is not only the distress of the elderly, but also an urgent question about the inheritance of Tibetan culture.
Wan Ma Tsedan's works, there are many religious views.
For example, why Tibetans are forbidden to kill, and their views on soul reincarnation.
2019's "Balloon" is the first time that Wan Ma Tseden has used a woman as the protagonist to tell a story. The film unfolds with a family conflict: a woman who wants to have an abortion and a newborn who is believed to be the reincarnation of a living Buddha.
Taking "fertility choice" as the starting point, religious fables and fertility pressure are strung together, explaining the phenomenon that science and religion are difficult to reconcile. In particular, the surrealistic depiction of death imagery in the film is full of Tibetan sacred and poetic concepts of death, representing the maturity of his work style.
【2】
To be able to shoot such delicate, vivid and imaginative images requires not only meticulous observation, but also sufficient knowledge and business ability.
From this point of view, Wan Ma Tseidan has been learning and improving. In the 90s, he began to publish novels, and then went to the Beijing Film Academy system to study.
This unique imagery is rooted in his early observations and writings on Tibetan culture. Before becoming a filmmaker, Wan Ma Tseden was a bilingual writer and literary translator, and several of his films "Quiet Mani Stone", "Tharlo", "Killed a Sheep" and "Balloon" were adapted from his short Chinese novels.
The famous Tibetan writer Tashi Dawa praised that "Wanma Tseden created the peak of Tibetan movies and novels Gemini".
After making films for so many years, he has continuously participated in major film festivals at home and abroad, absorbing different film knowledge and perfecting his film works. He was twice shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival Horizon section for Best Picture.
The most notable thing is that his talent was appreciated by Wong Kar-wai, and 2018's "Hit and Killed a Sheep" was produced by Wong Kar-wai and moved out of his behind-the-scenes team, escorted by Zhang Shuping, Du Duzhi, Lin Qiang, Lu Songye and other "gold medal teams".
For Sister Pickpocket, Wan Ma Tsedan's biggest contribution is that he broke through the audience's "curious imagination" of Tibetan films. In his films, Tibet is no longer a simple mysterious symbol, let alone Wen Qing's mouth-to-mouth Yao Chi to wash his soul.
The protagonists are always flesh-and-blood living people, and the audience can see the current situation of Tibetans' lives, the influence of modern civilization on them, and the mental state and gender consciousness of the locals.
Further, he presents Tibetans who are in step with the times, rather than the sacred corners of fantasy.
Further, Wan Ma Tseidan is not only a treasure of Tibetan cinema, but also a jade in the mainland film industry.
【3】
His films are so pure, sincere, and moving. He never bows his head for traffic and heat, which is the wind bone of a filmmaker.
If nothing happens, his artistic achievements will be even higher and he will be famous at more international film festivals.
Before his death, Wan Ma Tseidan had been active in the front line of film creation. The movie "Stranger" starring Huang Xuan was just announced at the end of March, and "Snow Leopard" starring Kim Ba, Xiong Ziqi and Cai Ding Tashi was also completed last year. The two films have not yet reached theaters, but we have to say goodbye to him.
In addition, Wan Ma Tseden also mentioned in an interview with the publication of the novel collection "Only Half of the Story" that he had the desire to adapt several works such as "Hard Candy of Fruit", "Special Guest Actor" and "A Golden Ear" into movies.
It's just that now, it's all a pity.
However, before his death, Wan Ma Tseden brought several Tibetan directors. Sontaiga and Lahuaga have received his help and encouragement. I hope that Wan Ma Tsedan's intentions can continue in these new directors' films.
Keep pushing the film and go one step further.