Last month Tibetan film­maker Dhondup Wangchen was sen­tenced to six years in prison by the Chinese courts for mak­ing the film Leaving Fear Behind, a doc­u­men­tary about Tibetans’ views on the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Wangchen was arrested shortly after the com­ple­tion of shoot­ing in May of 2008, but the pro­duc­ers man­aged to smug­gle the footage out of the coun­try. The film is embed­ded below.

According to a source cited by Filming for Tibet, Wangchen has no access to inde­pen­dent legal assis­tance, and his appeal period will expire tomor­row. Furthermore, Wangchen is reported to have con­tracted hepati­tis B in prison and is not receiv­ing med­ical treat­ment for the condition.

“My aim for this film is not to make a famous or par­tic­u­larly enter­tain­ing film. This film is about the plight of the Tibetan people—helpless and frus­trated. Therefore I hope that every­one will pay spe­cial atten­tion and sup­port it. That’s my biggest hope.” ~ Dhondup Wangchen

You can make a dona­tion to Filming for Tibet here.

Tags: China, Dhondup Wangchen, documentary, Tibet

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 11:15 pm by Andrew and is filed under Rants & Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.