THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER

Two Tibet Films Withdrawn from Asian Film Festival under Chinese Pressure
Bombay, August 17, 2004 (FOT India)

Perhaps for the first time in India, two important films, scheduled to be shown at the Asian Film Festival in Mumbai, have been withdrawn as a result of direct pressure from Chinese Embassy officials. The Asian Film Festival's committee, headed by Festival Director Mr. Sudhir Nandgaonkar, has bowed before the threats made by the Chinese Embassy, who threatened to coerce the Indian Government into lifting censor exemptions on all films (not just the two films under controversy) in the festival, and thus throw the entire festival into jeopardy.

'Kundun' (by Martin Scorsese) based on the life of the present Dalai Lama and 'Seven Years in Tibet' (by Jean-Jacques Annaud), the story of Heinrich Harrer's sojourn in Lhasa, at the time of the Chinese invasion, were part of a package of five films on Tibet, as a 'Focus on Tibet' module for the Third Eye, the film festival to be held from August 21 to August, 28.

More recently, on the Dalai Lama's visit to the UK in 2004, the Chinese objected to his giving an address to the University of Liverpool, as well as the Parliament of Scotland. They went to the extent of threatening to cancel the sister university arrangement that the University of Liverpool has with Shanghai University. However, both, the university and the Scottish Parliament stood firm. The Chinese were categorically told: "This is Scotland, not China".

The Indian Committee for Cultural Freedom and Friends of Tibet (India) strongly protest this blatant interference in the freedom of the media. That the Chinese should do so is not at all surprising considering the nature of the Chinese State. But it is sad that the organising committee of the Asian Film Festival should succumb to such illegitimate pressures from a foreign power and deny the Indian people the right to see the films of their choice.