Subject: Pema x 3; 'Making a film for Pema'; a 90 minutes student-documentary devided in three portraits on a Tibetan refugee named Pema living in North-India.

(filmed on Digital-Video edited on Betacam SP, subtitled in English).

Juley! My name is Michiel Keller. I am a Dutch Filmstudent(24). This year I finished 'Making a film for Pema' a documentary on a Tibetan refugee (Pema) living in Choglamsar North India. A Tibetan trying actively to raise funds for his camp. Media has its ways to present the Tibetans. They tend to focus on one thing: Tibetans being poor and helpless or Tibetans being religious and beatifull. I made three films on the same Tibetan. The first two are poor religious but in the third (much longer) film I tried to be in the middle of the action. To follow this Tibetan's life in a proper way. For this third film I followed Pema for two and a half months. When you watch this film you feel the difference in how one-dimensional life of a Tibetan can be presented(in the first two films) and how three dimensional this third film feels.

Being a viewer of each of these three portraits you get to know this Tibetan each time in

another way -1. in the camp in need of help

-2. religious mountainguide

-3. searching for tourists to sponsor his projects for solar energy

The first portrait(7 minutes) is a TV-item ment to raise funds for the Tibetan refugees living in Pema's camp-> It shows Pema being a poor refugee.

The second film(23 minutes) is a klassical-nice-pictures-film ment to raise tourists for Pema-> It shows Pema as a filosofical mountainguide making a trip through the Himalayas to a religious festival at Lingshed monastry.

The third film(60 minutes)shows the live of Pema during the 2 months we were making these two films for Pema. This film is filmed in the direct cinema style. You see Pema interact with tourists trying to involve them in his projects for solar energy and clean water for his camp. The tourists like Pema because he presents himself as poor (just as in film 1) and also as Tibetan filosofical (just as in film 2). The viewer also gets to know Pema as a clever arranger for his projects but also for himself. At the end of the film Pema has arranged to get money from France for his project and a digital camera for himself. He gets a truck from America for his project and a computer for himself. And in the end he gets a

ticket from a Dutch tourist to come to Holland to see this film on The International filmfestival of Rotterdam. You can see what Pema thinks through the way he reacts in the interactions with the tourists. For the audience in this way its exiting to see what happens when this Pema meets a new tourist. Pema uses his culural and religious background to be interesting for the tourists. You see how Pema uses this to get help for his projects in his refugeecamp.

In this third film, the interactions between Pema and the western tourists from lots of different countries, give the audience lots of visions to think about during this film. And not only about the character of Pema.

I'd like to ask if you know a place where this film can be shown.(It has already been shown at the International Filmfestival of Rotterdam and on the Erasmus university for school purposes). The film can also be used in combination with a discussion about the refugeesituation afterwards, because it gives lots of thinks to think and discuss about.

I hope you can help, yours sicerely,

Michiel Keller

Michiel Keller

Nijenrode 13

2352JJ

Leiderdorp

The Netherlands

Phone: +3171 5898611

michielkeller@hotmail.com