Director: Pema Tseden
Tibet | 2009 | 112 minutes | Tibetan Amdo dialect with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere

A director goes in search to find the perfect male and female actors to play the lead roles in his film about a classic Tibetan opera. The task is not as easy as one might think as the director and his crew journey across Tibet searching for the actors that have the exceptional voice and special personality trait especially for the male lead role of Drime Kunden–a boundlessly compassionate character. Rather quickly, the director and his crew find their female lead, a veiled girl, in a village renowned for its operatic talent, and wish to cast her. She agrees, only on the condition that they also cast her ex-boyfriend, who once starred with her as the male lead of Drime Kunden in the play version. As they search for the girl’s lost love in town after town, village after village, and from one lead to another auditioning along the way, the director begins reflecting upon his own love story. The end-result may be as confounded as the search itself. Winner of the Jury Grand Prix at the 2009 Shanghai International Film Festival, The Search is a simultaneous journey through the physical terrain of Tibet and the depths of spirit and memory.

“The Search is a simple and poetic evocation of love and how despite its disappointments, people have difficulty letting go.”
—Maggie Lee, The Hollywood Reporter

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