‘We Are No Monks’ holds Preview in Dharamsala
Gulshan at an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama |
Dharamsala, 3 January 2004: Pema Dhondup, the man behind the first Tibetan feature film, says his movie was an attempt to ask his viewers if the Tibetan struggle can take a violent turn in the future. “It’s just a question”, he told reporters present at the Movie Den, the venue for the preview of his first venture into feature filmmaking.
Titled ‘We are no monks’, the movie depicts a story of four friends living in Mcloed Ganj, the exile headquarters of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The cast includes bollywood villain Gulshan Grover who plays a local cop. Gulshan did the role without any compensation. Some members of the cast and crew were also present to watch the screening of the movie.
Gulshan, in an interview with TibetNet on the sets of the film in April, had said, “The films made so far on Tibet has been only about either monks and monasteries or earlier years of Tibet. No one has touched the topic of today: Tibetan youth who have been living in exile, about their problems, their thinking and their confusions. That reflects the problem of the entire youth. So the film is very fascinating”.
Pema calls his film a mix of fiction filmmaking and uncontrolled documentary using real life scenes and people.
The film had been shot on locations around the exile Tibetan community’s hub of activities. The film will be released soon.