Tibetan auteur Pema Tseden’s final completed feature, Snow Leopard, is set amongst vast and stunning Tibetan terrain, and uses the fabled creature to pose and probe the universal question of tradition versus modernity. An unexpected incident causes a snow leopard to break into the sheep pen of a local herder and kill nine rams not only causing a generational row in the family and attracting a TV crew into the village, but also triggering a heated debate on whether to honour or abandon traditional values in modern day Tibet.

The Garden Cinema View:

Pema Tseden’s premature passing, just weeks before the premiere of Snow Leopard, is a keenly felt loss for cinema. Over the course of his career, Tseden established himself as the figurehead for Tibetan language cinema. Snow Leopard might not reach the level of his masterpieces, Balloon and Tharlo, but is still a vital document of plateau-life. In fact, this may be an appropriate entry point for those new to Tseden’s work, as it returns to his themes of tradition and myth versus modernity, the balance of nature and technology, and linguistic and political tensions and clashes within this vast region. Snow Leopard captures the elemental grandeur of the mountains with almost incidental ease, and central dreamlike sequences showing the relationship between the titular creature and a monk are some of the most spellbinding moments in Tseden’s filmography.    

Cast:
Jinpa, Dylan Xiong, Tseten Tashi, Zhuo Cuo Wang