On Monday 16 February, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of Jocelyn Ford’s debut film Nowhere to Call Home, which documents the extraordinary journey of Tibetan farmer Zanta as she battles prejudice and sexism in order to provide her young son, Yang Quing, with an education.

Zanta is widowed at the age of twenty-eight, and is left at the mercy of her tyrannical in-laws, who do not want their grandson to go to school. She consequently escapes to Beijing in order to offer Yang Quing a better start in life than she herself was given, stating that “without education, he’s no different from a yak.” Nowhere to Call Home follows Zanta as she is victim to blatant racism in China and struggles to navigate the oppressively patriarchal Tibetan society from which she hails, in which women are systematically silenced and bullied.

Jocelyn Ford takes audience questions following the screening of Nowhere to Call Home at the Frontline Club

Following the screening, an audience member commented on the impressive access that Jocelyn Ford had gained in locations in both Tibet and China, and asked her to comment on the different obstacles that she faced in the process.

Ford responded:
“As you may have noticed, I had never made a film before and had no idea how to go about it. But what I was told was that there is one important thing: you must have trust from the person in your film. Zanta gave me that trust within twenty minutes of our conversation. With other people… well, Beijing is a lawless sort of place, so I would show up at the police station [to film] and they’d have to figure out what to do with me…”

Another member of the audience wondered whether the director still maintained regular contact with the protagonists of Nowhere to Call Home, Zanta and her son Yang Quing, as the project was filmed six years ago in 2009. Ford replied that she had recently been in touch with Zanta, who had provided an update on the progress of her now fourteen-year-old son:

“His English is excellent, his Maths….forget it! He’s had a lot of difficulties. The teacher has been very unwelcoming to Tibetans and told other children not to associate with him. It’s not been easy.”

The discussion then moved onto the reactions that the film had provoked, by both Tibetan and Chinese viewers. Ford commented that she had been pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the film, on both sides:

“A lot of Han Chinese are totally shocked because the media and propaganda machine says that they treat Tibetans so well, and give them all this money… I consider this very media driven. So when they see the film they have to come to grips with the difference between what they thought before and what they see here, because Zanta is amazingly frank.”

Ford also mentioned the positive outcome of screening Nowhere to Call Home in school settings in China:

“A lot of times I’ve been really pleased with the Han Chinese high-school kids in Beijing. A lot have said, ‘Well gosh, we see there’s a problem and what do we do about it? Who should be responsible? Can I, as an individual, do anything?’ I’ve had an outpouring of people offering to help them, so I’m encouraged.”

Visit the Nowhere to Call Home Facebook page for more information and future screenings.

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

On Friday 31 January, the audience was taken on a cinematic journey of insights from Tibet, Japan, Romania, Afghanistan and the UAE during an evening of Shorts at the Frontline Club. The selection showed five very different but equally compelling short documentaries. This time the films provoked thoughts on the consequences of tourism on ancient traditions, the dedication of individuals who take on a community’s responsibility and the forming of different memories that, combined, create our history.

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Russel O. Bush’s film Vultures of Tibet was set in the striking Tibetan mountains, home to the monks who continue the ancient tradition of sky burials. The sacred practice offers bodies of the dead to the mountain’s vultures. With cameras at the read and hungry for a spectacle, a new phenomenon of tourists now preys on the burials. The unwelcome invasion of mainly Chinese tourists is depicted in the film as a direct threat to Tibetan culture. With reference to the tourists’ disrespect of the local dead, a monk reflected: “They think death only happens to others not themselves.” The voyeuristic banality of the tourists is in stark contrast to the pensive monks. Although another monk explains that the Chinese tourists are not conscious of their negative impact on their practice, the film painfully echoes wider Chinese–Tibetan tensions.

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The sanctity of identity was even more explicitly explored in the film Recollections by Nathanael Carton. After the 2011 tsunami in Japan, around 750,000 photographs were found severely damaged by the sea near the city of Yamamoto. This film documented a group of Japanese volunteers who repair and reconstruct these photos. When possible the photos are returned to their owners, reuniting them with their memories. One volunteer explained that the photographs act as “proof of their existence”. The photos evidently brought with them the pain of loss but importantly, in some cases, the trigger to move forward.

Following on from Recollections was Layla’s Melody by Jens Pedersen which also deals with family identity and looking to the future. Layla is an Afghan girl growing up in an orphanage. Despite the harsh Taliban stance on women playing musical instruments, she plays the drums and dreams of becoming a musician. Her story took an emotional turn when her mother comes for a rare visit and reassures Layla that she can stay in the orphanage away from the problems plaguing her family. The film was an intimate reminder of the ongoing fight for women’s emancipation in the country.

While the evening’s films dealt with some difficult subject matter they did not lack humorous moments. Feeding 500 by Rafed Al Harthi, follows Sediq, an Indian working in the UAE, who for 15 years has taken it upon himself to feed 500 of its stray cats. As the film demonstrated, this requires a daily routine taking up most of Sediq’s time and money. The underlying question was how his apparent duty to feed the hungry cats could be at the expense of seeing and providing for his family back in India. Nevertheless, Sediq’s jovial and unflinching efforts to feed his furry friends along with his ability to ignore the locals disdain had the audience laughing loudly.

The same can be said of the final film, Stremt 89 by Anda Puscas and Dragos Dulea. Taking us to Romania, the film captured the reflections of its rural village countrymen and women recounting their interpretations of what can only be described as a revolution of sorts. The anti-Communist revolution took place in Romania’s bigger cities in 1989 but the excitements failed to impact the small rural area of Stremt. Evidently this did not deter the local men, who eagerly jumped at the opportunity of change or counterchange (they would decide later). Their enthusiasm was fuelled, much to their wives’ concerns, with local wine and lots of it. Perhaps the only sane man explains how he managed to stop the men killing each other by stealing their bullets. The locals’ witty anecdotes painted a chaotic and honest picture. Some wise words filtered through as an old man declared that he was no longer sure what the fuss was about, saying that revolutions were merely “trading powers”.

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Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav is back in court in Jerusalem on Monday, appealing his April conviction and seven year sentence for indecent assault and sexual harassment of two female employees.

In Dharamsala, Lobsang Sangay is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, following the Dalai Lama’s announcement in March that he is stepping down from Tibetan political leadership.

Tuesday is International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Celebrations of indigenous culture and discussions on human rights, social and economic development and international cooperation take place around the world.

Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos address the InterAction Annual Forum, which kicks off in Washington on Wednesday. The forum brings together NGOs, government agencies and international organisations to discuss development, with the focus likely to be on the current drought and famine crisis in the horn of Africa.

In London, Shrien Dewani is expected to find out whether he will be extradited to South Africa to stand trial for alleged involvement in his wife Anni’s murder last November.

On Thursday, Sri Lanka shuts down a number of national parks to begin the first large-scale census of its wild elephant population by counting them as they approach watering holes. The census will allow policy-makers do enact more effective conservation policies. 

The US Presidential race continues to heat up, as candidates for the Republican nomination face off in a TV debate from Iowa State University ahead of Saturday’s Ames Straw Poll, a traditionally important gauge of support for Presidential wannabes.

As the European debt crisis rumbles on, France and Greece both release second quarter GDP figures on Friday, while Greece is also due to make a relatively small bond repayment of €480m.

Meanwhile, ABC publishes July circulation figures for UK newspapers. Media-watchers will be paying particular attention to the sales of Sunday papers following the 10 July closure of News of the World.

Saturday is the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall, which is being marked in Germany with a commemoration ceremony attended by President Christian Wulff.

The Dalai Lama begins a three-day visit to Toulouse, while in his adopted home country of India, Hindus celebrate Raksha Bandhan, signifying the bond between brothers and sisters.

On Sunday, neighbouring Pakistan celebrates Independence Day. Last year’s celebrations were cancelled due to the floods that killed some 2,000 people and displaced or affected another 20 million.