Ala Changso

Three steps forward, three claps with pine hand-clogs, then the body prostrate, wrapped in animal skin, down on the road to Lhasa… A pilgrim’s path to the Holy City might take a year, but that time is long enough for loss to age, for sundered objects to reattach, and for new ideas of family to form. With its stunning landscapes and emotion-rich performances, Sonthar Gyal’s newest film traces a broken family’s pilgrimage, and a wayward donkey’s too, with each seeking some kind of good. Probing sickness, mortality, and retribution for jealousy in a subdued, but still wrenching drama, the film takes its title from a Tibetan song, and suggests Sonthar Gyal as one of the clearest, most formidable voices in today’s Tibetan cinema.