Summer Pasture
Directed by Lynn True, Nelson Walker, Tsering Perlo
Focusing on a young nomadic couple living with their infant daughter in the high grasslands of eastern Tibet, Summer Pasture is remarkable as much for what it doesn’t show as for what it does. Eschewing the trap of fawning, false nostalgia so often found in such ethnographic approaches, the film investigates the unvarnished particularities—social, cultural—of a family attempting to navigate self-subsistent living in a changing economic situation. And, still, the film captures the intense beauty of an area renowned for its natural wonder. For every choice that may seem familiar to a western audience, there remains a difference that the film treats with respect. Filmed during the summer of 2007 with rare access to an area seldom visited by outsiders, Summer Pasture offers an unprecedented window into a highly insular community and a sensitive portrait of a family at a time of great transition.
TRAILER
A remarkably intimate docu woven out of tradition and change, and the endearing subjects who contend with both.
—Variety
Summer Pasture is remarkable not merely for documenting the disappearing way of life but also for registering the depth of Yama's and Locho's uncertainty about moving on from it.
—Village Voice/LA Weekly
The success of a documentary so often hinges on the choice of subjects as much as the topic, and directors Lynn True and Nelson Walker hit the jackpot with Yama, Locho and their unnamed infant daughter. While the baby girl provides the kind of chubby-cheeked adorableness to melt even the coldest heart, her parents are charming and honest characters that make yak herding in the remote sprawling steppe of China feel utterly relatable.
—The Washington Post
Summer Pasture has an earthy intimacy and compassion for its subjects that will have you thinking about their plight long after they've packed up and moved on.
—Los Angeles Times
China/USA/Tibet 2010, 85 mins. Photographed by Nelson Walker. Cinemad Presents and Baxter Brothers.
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office opens December 14: online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema.
TRAILER
A remarkably intimate docu woven out of tradition and change, and the endearing subjects who contend with both.
—Variety
Summer Pasture is remarkable not merely for documenting the disappearing way of life but also for registering the depth of Yama's and Locho's uncertainty about moving on from it.
—Village Voice/LA Weekly
The success of a documentary so often hinges on the choice of subjects as much as the topic, and directors Lynn True and Nelson Walker hit the jackpot with Yama, Locho and their unnamed infant daughter. While the baby girl provides the kind of chubby-cheeked adorableness to melt even the coldest heart, her parents are charming and honest characters that make yak herding in the remote sprawling steppe of China feel utterly relatable.
—The Washington Post
Summer Pasture has an earthy intimacy and compassion for its subjects that will have you thinking about their plight long after they've packed up and moved on.
—Los Angeles Times
China/USA/Tibet 2010, 85 mins. Photographed by Nelson Walker. Cinemad Presents and Baxter Brothers.
Tickets $9 for SFFS members, $11 general, $10 senior/student/disabled. Box office opens December 14: online at sffs.org and in person at SF Film Society Cinema.
Monday & Tuesday, January 16 & 17
Showtmes: 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30
SF Film Society Cinema
1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)
Showtmes: 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30
SF Film Society Cinema
1746 Post Street (Webster/Buchanan)