Director: Karen McDiarmid
Canada | 2009 | 34 minutes | English and Tibetan with English subtitles
D.C. Premiere

Shining Spirit, filmed in Canada, India, and Tibet (2006–2009), documents a recording project that brings together the family of Jamyang Yeshi, through music and the use of multi-tracking recording technology. With the help of Western friends, Jamyang, in exile in Canada, and his brother, Tsundue, in exile in the United States, join voices with the family they left behind in Tibet. For the first time in over a decade, they sing together once again. Shining Spirit is a testament to the power of music, the resilience of the Tibetan culture, and the enduring bond of a family separated by politics and geography.

View Shining Spirit: The Musical Journey of Jamyang Yeshi trailer here

Karen McDiarmid
As a photographer and therapist, Banff-based Karen McDiarmid has lived an eclectic life of travel and work around the globe. For the past ten years she has been a part-time resident of Dharamsala, India, working in the mental health clinic there with newly arrived Tibetans and ex-political prisoners. The experience of listening to their stories of hardship, faith and resilience galvanized her to devote her time and energies to the Tibetan cause. McDiarmid was also drawn into the thriving Tibetan music scene, and has managed to combine her aid work with Tibetans in exile, and her love of Tibetan music, by founding the Tara Café Project in 2003. Along with working with Tibetan musicians and producing their music, she oversees an education program for nomadic children in the Amdo region of Tibet. Shining Spirit: The Musical Journey of Jamyang Yeshi (2009), which documents a recording project in Canada, India and Tibet, is Karen’s first film.