Press

Interviews

Media For Change
Times of India
Blouin Artinfo
Brooklyn Rail
indiewire
Twitchfilm
Giant Robot

When Hari Got Married

“Hari’s charming, funny and frank…an insight into the changing landscape of India. My recommendation for this week, Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s lovely documentary, When Hari Got Married.”
—Anupama Chopra, The Front Row

The Sun Behind the Clouds

“This film shows what is happening in the hearts of the Tibetan people…it presents a very unusual insight into the situation in Tibet.”
—Vaclav Havel, on presenting the award

“…beautiful, stirring and inescapably elegiac…”
—Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

“The documentary does a superlative job of examining the half-century dispute over Chinese rule of mountainous Tibet.”
—VA Musetto, New York Post

“A potent update on Tibetans’ 50-year struggle for justice and recognition…essential viewing for anyone who cares about the fate of the mountain region and the legacy of the Dalai Lama.”
—Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter

“…a welcome departure from many previous films about the decades-long friction between Tibet and China…an exception in what is not an angry film but a notably calm, well-considered and balanced one.”
—Robert Koehler, Variety

Dreaming Lhasa

“The beauty and lyricism of this film is transformative, evoking the splendour of nature and humanity in metaphysical, historical and culturally specific terms.”
—Tammy Stone, The Festival Daily, Toronto

“…the film opens a window into another culture and its values, and of the cultural identity crisis befalling a young generation of Tibetans who’ve never seen their ancestral homeland…”
—Jennifer Merin, New York Press

“The beauty of life’s realities! A wonderfully different film view of Tibet”
—Neue Zürcher Zeitung

“It’s a pleasure to come across Dreaming Lhasa, a drama that unfolds amid crystalline backdrops… the images have a translucent purity; you feel as if you’re seeing the world anew.”
—Boston Globe

“For many in the West, Tibet is the last romantic place left on earth. But beyond the stately mountain ranges, saffron robes and timeless traditions lies a struggle unfolding very much in the here and now. Dreaming Lhasa is the first film to capture both the majesty of Tibetan Buddhist culture and the complexity of its ties to the outside world.”
—Cameron Bailey, Toronto International Film Festival

The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche

“Before the shooting of Little Buddha I saw a movie called The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche, directed by Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin, a beautiful documentary about a monk who goes to Tibet, smuggles a child out of Tibet, takes him to the Dalai Lama and the oracle, and is told: “Yes, this is the reincarnation of your master”. He takes the boy to his monastery in southern India, and the whole movie is informed by the relationship between the tutor and the boy. It shows a man who becomes for this boy father and mother. He gives the boy food, he washes him and he plays with him, At the same time the boy is the reincarnation of his teacher. So he is tremendously respectful of this boy. And I thought: but isn’t that the perfect relationship we should have with children?”
—Bernardo Bertolucci, Sight and Sound, April 1994