Beyond the mystic line: a diasporic Tibetan cinema of nostalgia

Abstract · While religion and spirituality often come into the frame of Tibetan diasporic cinema, in some recent lms directed and produced by a younger generation of Tibetans in exile, Buddhism appears as just another component of Tibetan lives. Part of the importance of these lms, shot in the interstitial and liminal spaces of refugees’ ‘homes away from home[land]’, resides in their capa- city of resisting a mystical, idealised vision of Tibet and Tibetans. Based on on-going research among Tibetan lmmakers outside Tibet and their shifting positionalities as diasporic subjects, this paper looks at the renegotiation of the issues of material poverty and emotional precarity presented through four experimental lms made by Tibetans diasporic lm directors, who strive to re-present Tibetan refugees beyond a homogenizing ethnic frame and a stereotyping mystic line.