EXCLUSIVE: We’re getting an unique first have a look at Sonam Choekyi, Ben Ayers and Andrew Lynch’s movie Snow Leopard Sisters, which premieres immediately on the SXSW Movie Pageant.
“For hundreds of years, our tradition has been in concord with nature,” native snow leopard conservationist Tshiring Lhamu Lama says within the clip, adopted by a shot of the magnificent creature seeking to her digital camera. “Our ancestors consider that the snow leopard is a guardian of the mountains. With no snow leopards, our sacred steadiness might be misplaced.”
The movie tells the inspiring story of an unlikely but highly effective friendship between two Indigenous girls in probably the most remoted corners of the Himalayas. The movie follows Lama as she mentors 17-year-old Tenzin Bhuti Gurung. Collectively, they journey via the treacherous but breathtaking panorama of the Himalayas in quest of the final remaining endangered snow leopards.
“After I was working for the Nationwide Park, my analysis confirmed that the snow leopards had been disappearing in Dolpo,” Lamu provides. “No person appeared to care. So I went out by myself. I really feel like I’m the one one who needs to save lots of them.”
By means of intimate verité footage and gorgeous cinematography, the movie highlights the ability of girls’s voices in conservation, shaping a greater future for themselves and the elusive snow leopards.
“We made this movie with the first purpose of supporting Tshiring’s work and the communities in Dolpo, which our total group is deeply linked to. Her message that wildlife conservation should start with understanding individuals and communities first is highly effective and pressing, and we had been proud to doc the concrete steps that she is taking to guard the few remaining snow leopards within the wild,” administrators Choekyi, Ayers and Lynch shared in a press release. “We had been all deeply moved by the energy and openness of Tshiring and Tenzin, and their willingness to share such an intimate story with us. They taught us that Indigenous girls’s voices are essential for profitable wildlife conservation and a lot extra. Most significantly, we cared deeply for each other and everybody within the movie from the very begin, which, in fact, modified all of our lives, too.”
