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Embassy of India

Alpine Tour Service

Director: Anna Balikci-Denjongpa & Dawa T Lepcha
India (2007)
Audio: English
Subtitles: Japanese
60 min.

The film illustrates the changes the Lepcha of the Dzongu reserve, North Sikkim,
have been through in the last 60 years. From the 1940s, the Lepcha of Tingvong
village gradually abandoned hunting, gathering and the slash and burn cultivation
of dry rice, and became settled agriculturalists. Entire mountain sides were
converted to cardamom and terraced for the cultivation of irrigated paddy. The
irrigated rice and the cardamom cash crop not only brought the Lepcha within
Sikkim’s market economy but helped create a surplus which could among other
things be invested in religion. In the 1940s, the Lepcha of Tingvong embraced
Buddhism and all its complex rituals without however abandoning their strong
shamanic traditions. Today, both forms of rituals amiably co-exist in the village.

This film is part of a long-term visual anthropology training project for the tribal
communities of Sikkim. The first phase aims to document the social life and
rituals of the Lepcha of Dzongu. We have accumulated over 100 hours of
material which is archived at the institute for research use. This is the first film
edited from the material. Short thematic films will be edited for museum use in
Sikkim.

Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

(ENVIRONMENT)
* Meltdown
* Leave Nothing but Footprints
* Turf Wars
* Timber to Tibet
(ADVENTURE)
* Riding Solo To The Top Of The
World
* A Higher Calling
* Into the Thunder Dragon
* Farther than the Eye Can See
* Trio for One
* Fatal Game
(POLITICS / HUMAN RIGHTS)
* Thin ice
* Chulo, Choli ra Banduk - a stove,
a blouse and a gun
* Better to Have Been Killed
* The Forbidden Team
* Jashn-e-azadhi (How We
Celebrate Freedom)
* Siachen: A war for Ice
* Tibetan Refugees: A Struggle
Beyond Generations
(POVERTY & DEVELOPMENT)
* Journey of a Red Fridge
* Hami kunako maanche –
We corner people
* A Bridge over the Himalayas
* Yi khel gi kawa
(The Price of a Letter)
* Tingvong: a Lepcha village in
Sikkim
(CULTURE)
* Angry Monk
* Miss Tibet
* Closer than Tibet
* Bhedako Oon Jasto...in search
of a song...

* A man called nomad
* Call it Karma
* Daughters of Wisdom
* Bhutan - Taking the Middle Path
to Happiness