Nowhere To Call Home tells the powerful story of Zanta, a Tibetan woman who moves to Beijing against the wishes of her in-laws so that her young son can receive an education.

 
Widowed at 28, Tibetan farmer Zanta defies her tyrannical father-in-law and refuses to marry the family’s only surviving son following her husband’s death. When Zanta’s in-laws won’t let her seven-year-old child go to school, she flees her village and heads to Beijing where she becomes a street vendor. Destitute and embattled by discrimination, Zanta inveigles a foreign customer into helping pay her boy’s school fees. On a New Year’s trip back to her village, Zanta’s in-laws take her son hostage, drawing the unwitting American into the violent family feud. The two women forge a partnership in an attempt to outmanoeuvre the in-laws, who, according to tradition, get the final say on their grandson’s future.

In an article titled “Inspiring Dialogue, Not Dissent, in China,” the New York Times wrote that “The film breaks down the sometimes romantic Shangri-La view that Westerners have of Tibet… and offers a shocking portrait of the outright racism… Tibetans face in Chinese parts of the country.”

Directed by Jocelyn Ford
Duration: 76′
Year: 2014