World Tibet Network News Saturday, May 2, 1998

WASHINGTON, May 2, 1998 (AP) One month before a summit with President Clinton, China is protesting an international film festival's decision to show a movie in Washington that depicts the Chinese as brutal occupiers of Tibet.

The Chinese Embassy demanded that organizers of the Washington International Film Festival withdraw "Windhorse,'' which was to be shown tonight. The festival refused to pull the film.

"It's incredibly depressing,'' said Paul Wagner, an Academy Award-winning producer and director of the film. "They are saying the film is a lie. It's not a lie. It's based on the everyday life of a Tibetan.''

The contemporary movie, filmed in Nepal and Tibet, recounts the story of an aspiring Tibetan pop singer who wins favor with the Chinese government in Tibet. She reconsiders her career after her cousin, a Buddhist nun, is imprisoned and tortured for her religious beliefs.

In a statement, China said the film was meant "obviously to smear China's policy toward Tibet. It has been widely acknowledged that Tibet has achieved remarkable economic growth and social progress.

"This embassy therefore strongly regrets the decision of the film festival and demands that this film be withdrawn,'' China's minister of cultural affairs, Li Gang, said in the statement.

Wagner said depiction of the torture of Buddhist nuns was actually mild compared with reality.

"The torture of these nuns is widely documented by several international human rights organizations,'' he said.

Anthony Gittens, the film festival's organizer, said he would not pull the movie, despite China's objections. He said he was not pressured by sponsors or the U.S. government.

Gittens gave the Chinese embassy a videotape of "Windhorse'' and invited embassy officials to attend the showing, saying he hoped "the embassy would be willing to ... participate in an open dialogue about the film and its issues.''

Clinton is to meet in China with President Jiang Zemin at a June summit, the first by an American president since the 1989 crackdown on democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square.

China has protested its depiction in films before.

Last year, Beijing heavily criticized the films "Red Corner,'' in which Richard Gere portrays an American murder suspect trapped in China's justice system; and "Seven Years in Tibet,'' in which Brad Pitt plays an Austrian who scales the Himalayas and meets a young Dalai Lama.

In 1996, China protested the release of "Kundun,'' about the Dalai Lama's early life, and barred director Martin Scorsese from Tibet.