Film: SUMMER PASTURE April 3, 2011

Part of the Wisconsin Film Festival.

DESCRIPTION: Locho apparently used to be a bit of a ladies’ man, according to his wife Yama. But when you’re a Tibetan yak herder, “settling down” just doesn’t mean the same thing it does here. Summer Pasture is gorgeously filmed on the cold, high plains of eastern Tibet, revealing the fascinating details of daily life inside the family tent. Yes, the film acknowledges the tension between continuing the traditional nomadic way of life, and succumbing to the Chinese construction and development slowly encroaching into the valleys. What’s most memorable, though, are the intimate routines of Locho and Yama’s days: milking yaks, making butter, collecting the field dung to be dried for fuel, tending to their 5-month-old baby girl who is nestled naked in a fur-lined box. The couple deal with endless problems: the weather, Yama’s chronic illness, the weather, protecting their stash of valuable caterpillar fungus, runaway yaks, the weather. Locho still seems to want to escape into boyish irresponsibility, but it’s Yama who keeps focused on the practical and the necessary.

USA, Canada, Tibet, 2010, 85 mins, video, dir. Lynn True and Nelson Walker III

In Tibetan with English subtitles. Wisconsin Premiere.

Presented with the University of Wisconsin Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

Winner, Best Feature, Banff Mountain Film Festival; Inspiration Award Jury Special Mention, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival; Best New Documentary Filmmaker, Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Official Website: http://www.wifilmfest.org