Reframing Pilgrimage: Mobility, Identity, and Cultural Negotiation in Sonthar Gyal’s Ala Changso

This article examines the film Ala Changso (ང་ཡི་ཆང་གསོལ་རོགས, 阿拉姜色, 2018) by Tibetan director Sonthar Gyal (ཟོན་ཐར་.ལ།, Song Taijia 松太加) as a case study in biographical, cultural, and affective mobility. Drawing on mobility studies and film studies, the paper first explores the director’s trajectory—from his seminomadic upbringing in Qinghai province to formal cinematic training and international recognition—as an instance of person-based mobility within and beyond Chinese institutional cinema. It then turns to the film itself, which portrays the pilgrimage of a terminally ill woman across the Tibetan plateau. Initially rooted in religious devotion, the journey gradually shifts toward themes of familial care and emotional continuity. Through visual motifs such as prostration, landscape, and kinship, Ala Changso redefines mobility as an embodied and intersubjective act. The film demystifies spiritual journeys, framing them as practices of memory, resilience, and relational ethics. Together, Sonthar Gyal’s career and his film exemplify the evolving space for ethnically Tibetan filmmakers working within the People’s Republic of China, showing how local cultural perspectives meaningfully shape both national and transnational cinematic narratives.