A Nomad’s Life
Directors: Lynn True and Nelson Walker
Logline: In the mountains of Tibet, Locho and Yama struggle to maintain their family and way of life, and to reconcile their nomadic traditions amidst rapid modernization.
A Nomad’s Life was conceived as part of the Kham Film Project, an association of American and Tibetan filmmakers working together to improve the quality and diversity of knowledge about Tibet by engaging Tibetans in the creation of documentary films. In making A Nomad’s Life, Nelson Walker and I partnered with Rabsal, a local Tibetan NGO dedicated to using film and multimedia as a means of Tibetan self-representation. Tsering Perlo, the founder of Rabsal and an emerging documentary filmmaker himself, is a principal collaborator on the project. Perlo grew up in the nomadic community depicted in A Nomad’s Life and he provided rare access to this place seldom seen by outsiders.
Historically, Tibetan nomads have thrived in an extreme environment where few other humans dared to live. Until China’s occupation of Tibet in 1959, the basic patterns of life had changed little since the first nomads domesticated the yak and took to the pastures over 8,000 years ago. But now, unprecedented challenges are confronting this traditional lifestyle. A Nomad’s Life captures the struggles of a young nomadic family as their pastoral way of life is threatened by a fast-approaching globalization.
The film follows the family of Locho, Yama and their infant daughter (whom they call “Jiatomah” — loosely translated as “spiky brown-haired baby”) who spend the summer in the pastures of Jomtod Valley in Tibet’s Kham region 15,000 feet above sea level. The Chinese call this region “Wu-Zui” or “5 Most” for its reputation as the highest, coldest, poorest, largest and most remote area in Kham. Neither crops nor trees grow here; only hearty alpine grass sustains the family’s herd of yaks — the treasured animals that enable Locho and Yama to
carve an existence from one of the harshest habitable environments on earth.