Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making ‘My Lens, My Land’. How did you start, and how did you learn to make films?
This short film is my graduate project for the News and Documentary program at New York University. Prior to this, I hadn’t independently created a short film of nearly 30 minutes; my works were mostly ultra-short films around 5-8 minutes, but they also focused on the relationship between people and the land. For example, in one film, I captured the impact of modernity and tradition on the lives of the Tajik people living in the Pamir Plateau. Additionally, my colleague and I produced video news reports on job prospects for Venezuelan asylum seekers in New York City. I explored abandoned cities in the United States with urban explorer Ran Pan, filming the relationship between urban ruins and human development.
Tell us about ‘My Lens, My Land’. How do you describe it?
My Lens, My Land is about a Tibetan nomad who transformed his life with a camera. He captured the fading traditions and environmental degradation in his homeland and then decided to step in front of the camera himself. Through his films, he calls on the community to help protect the local ecology of the Tibetan Plateau. The nomadic lifestyle has inspired me deeply, especially its ethos of coexistence with all living beings. Human progress and climate shifts shrink habitats, and the land struggles to rejuvenate. Daze uses his camera, a rare sight on the grassland, to ignite actions beyond mere awareness. The traditional Tibetan nomad's philosophy of harmony with all beings, and the camera's role in sparking change, motivated me to pick up my own camera.
Please tell us about your favorite filmmakers.
In my documentary filmmaking journey, countless exceptional filmmakers have been guiding lights for me, too many to name here. Some include Nicolas Philibert, director of To Be and to Have; Werner Herzog, director of Grizzly Man; Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, whose works like Jesus Camp and Detropia I greatly admire; Kirsten Johnson and Nanfu Wang, who conducted wonderful masterclasses in my master program; and Zhang-ke Jia, a Chinese filmmaker known for telling stories of marginalized individuals. I could go on and on about them and their works.
If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?
This short film is already a work I'm happy with as a one person team, but with enough budget, I'd develop it into a feature film with collaboration. I would focus more on their family life and showcase more interactions between people and the local wildlife, which requires a substantial budget, time, and patience, especially the relationship between the father and daughter. Kawa Tso is a curious little girl with a very interesting story. I’m willing to spend more time documenting her growth and changes.
Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?
First, it's important to plan ahead. The preliminary research phase can be quite unpredictable, so I allocate plenty of time, such as around three months. Daze wasn't the first subject I researched. Before filming Daze, I actually spent over a week living with a Mongolian nomadic family, but due to time constraints, I had to switch subjects. During the filming phase, after meeting Daze's family, I didn't start shooting right away. Instead, I spent a month just living with them, allowing them to become comfortable with the camera. For culture I'm not familiar with, I also set aside ample time for preparation. The entire filming process took a whole summer and half of the spring semester. Because of our deadlines, everything had to be prepared well in advance, starting more than six months ahead. The editing phase also took a considerable amount of time. This was my first editing project, so I was learning as I went along, which took longer than I had initially planned. Editing a documentary is incredibly time-consuming; it took me about eight months to complete the current version.
What was the hardest part of making ‘My Lens, My Land’.
Before going to Tibet, I thought the biggest challenges would be the language barrier and adjusting to the high altitude. However, after living there for three months, I realized that despite only being able to have simple conversations through their 10-year-old daughter, Kawa Tso, we still understood each other. I was also fortunate that my body didn't react severely to the altitude of around 4,000 meters. The real challenge turned out to be making decisions during filming and editing. I aimed to capture the essence of their relationship with the grassland, but as a one-person team, I had no one to discuss when to stop filming or which scenes to cut. So that was quite challenging.
If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?
Currently, I'm familiarizing myself with the documentary industry and hoping to collaborate with outstanding creators. I'm also researching several documentary topics in both the US and China. Additionally, I'm about to embark on a solo trip across the US this month, aiming to capture a glimpse of American society through my unique perspective.