“I was a simple peasant, I never went to school, but at one point I said to myself that making a film was the best thing you could find to give word to my people ”, remembers Dhondup Wangchen. This “moment” is the winter of 2007, when the Tibetan “simple peasant” equips himself with a small camera and begins to do interviews with his compatriots in Qinghai, one of the three former provinces of Tibet. once independent. He is going to make a film of it. His intention? Ask the Tibetans what they think of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, an event that in 2008 embodied the irresistible rise of China.
His interlocutors, whom Dhondup Wangchen met in the countryside or isolated places in his native region, were to be unanimous in their rejection of China, which invaded Tibet in 1950. They also condemn the principle of the organization of the Games of Beijing, whose message of peace and harmony between peoples is only a decoy. Throughout the twenty-four minutes of the documentary, entitled “Overcoming Fear”, none of them tries to qualify their feelings towards the Chinese occupier.
On the other hand, all the people questioned – ordinary citizens, peasants, monks – denounce the settlement strategy of the Han (the main ethnic group of the People’s Republic) in Tibet. They confide in their fear of becoming a minority in their country and of seeing their culture and language disappear.
“So I shot on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. The official message, guaranteeing that human rights would be respected, made me think that I could make such a film ”, details Dhondup Wangchen, met in Paris on Monday, November 22. He adds, without laughing: “After all, freedom of speech is enshrined in the Chinese constitution. “ He ends up conceding: “I can’t say that I trusted China, but a little more in the Olympic Committee …”
Endless ordeal
Disappointed hopes, broken promises: in March 2008, when the film has not yet been shown anywhere, he was arrested on the road to Golog prefecture, somewhere in Qinghai. The police are checking his identity. We keep him waiting. His phone is examined. He realizes that this is not a routine check. He hears a policeman say: ” It’s him. ” Handcuffed, hooded, he is taken to a “hotel”, those secret places of detention where the henchmen of the Chinese political police are used to detaining all those who dare to stand up against the system.
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