As India and China repair ties, a Tibet film tells the story of a forgotten resistance

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — In the mountains of Nepal’s Mustang region, just hours from the homeland he had never seen, Tenzin Rigzin Phurpatsang struggled to breathe the air his Tibetan ancestors had adapted to over generations. The 37-year-old, first-time actor was in Mustang to film “Four Rivers Six Ranges,” a historical drama about resistance fighters who helped the Dalai Lama escape Tibet in 1959. A year later, Phurpatsang’s own grandfather, Yeshi Wangyal, had returned to Tibet after CIA training to lead a separate guerrilla mission.

He was killed fighting Chinese forces. Born in exile in India, Phurpatsang is now a New York model. As he filmed firefight scenes in the mountains, a world away from his life, he thought of his family’s past.

“Wow, is that what my grandfather went through?” he asked himself. Questions like this and others about Tibet’s history, how it’s remembered and who gets to tell it, are what Phurpatsang and director Shenpenn Khymsar hope “Four Rivers Six Ranges” will provoke at a moment when Tibet receives less sustained international attention than it once did. The film premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last year, before its Indian theatrical release on Sept.

18, a debut delayed as Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India. The 91-year-old Dalai Lama’s succession plan looms over Tibet’s future and that of Tibetans who have sought to preserve their identity during China’s tight control. The world also has shifted, with China more powerful, the U.S.

pulling back from its role as the world’s policeman and India and Beijing cautiously repairing ties. Chinese state media has accused the film of promoting separatism, reiterating China’s position that Tibet has always been part of the country and saying the film rewrites history. Khymsar insists it is rooted in history and that it is important for Tibetans to tell their own story.

Phurpatsang too believes it is vital for younger Tibetans to know the history of the resistance they inherited. “When you don’t talk about it, these stories … they become lost,” Phurpatsang said. Movie was filmed as a ‘covert operation’ in Nepal Khymsar grew up watching films like “Seven Years in Tibet,” starring Brad Pitt, and Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun,” both released in 1997 and focused on the Dalai Lama’s early life.