The wrench of exile is the theme of this quartet of short films from Tibetan directors, who themselves all live outside Tibet. Their intimate, emotional family dramas tell stories of separation and migration. In two of them, the 90-year-old Dalai Lama smiles out from photographs on shrines, a reminder of the precariousness of Tibet’s future. As a character in one of the films puts it bluntly: will there be anything to stop China erasing Tibetan identity when its rock-star spiritual leader is no longer around?
In the first film a Tibetan man lives in a kind of complicated happiness in Vietnam. He loves his wife, and they both adore their sunny-natured little daughter, but he has mournful eyes. Home is a town on the banks of the Mekong River, which has its source in Tibet. The river is a constant reminder of the region – and of Chinese might too, since Chinese hydropower dams are the cause of drought downstream in Vietnam.
Two of the short films feature Tibetans returning to the refugee community in the Indian town of Dharamshala for family funerals. But the saddest of all follows a Tibetan artist in Dharamshala whose marriage has been splintered by tragedy. The artist is excited to host an old school friend visiting from New York for dinner. He walks with a limp and tells his wife that his friend was his protector in school. But the dinner is a disaster; his friend from New York is brash and can’t wait to leave. The end of the short gives the film its most quietly moving scene: the artist crying out of frame, his wife looking down unpityingly. A deep and desperately sad mood hangs over the entire project.
● State of Statelessness is in UK cinemas from 16 January.
