Angry Monk – Reflections on Tibet
Angry Monk is a road-movie and a time-travel in the footsteps of the rebellious Tibetan monk Gendun Choephel (1903-51), revealing a face of old and present-day Tibet that goes against popular clichés.
A free spirit, Choephel was far ahead of his time and has since become a seminal figure, a symbol of hope for a free Tibet. A rebel and voluble critic of the establishment, Gendun Choephel kindled the anger of the Tibetan authorities. The film also makes an abundance of unique and rare historical footage available to the general public for the first time, offering a fascinating insight into a country whose eventful past is refracted in the multiplicity and contradictions of everyday life: archival images of ancient caravans and monasteries give way to scenes of discos and multi-lane highways in Lhasa, where pilgrims prostrate themselves as they circle the holy temple.
Directors
Luc Schaedler
Born in 1963 in Zurich, Switzerland. His first feature, MADE IN HONG KONG, was the thesis for his Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology at the University of Zurich. Since 1986, Schaedler has been involved in Cinema Xenix, a Zurich film club for which he has programmed numerous film series. The making of ANGRY MONK originated in a several-year trip Schaedler made to Asia in 1988, during which he spent most of his time in India and Tibet, travelling across much of the same territory that Gendun Choephel – the protagonist of his documentary – had fifty years earlier.