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6½ questions with: Lynn True & Nelson Walker

05.18.10 @ 12:14PM Tags : documentary, interview, lynntrue, nelsonwalker, summerpasture, tseringperlo

Lynn True, Nelson Walker, and Tsering Perlo’s documentary Summer Pasture premiered at this year’s Full Frame Film Festival, where it received a Full Frame Inspiration Award Honorable Mention. Summer Pasture takes place in the Kham region of Tibet, where nomads have lived off the land for 4,000 years — but many nomads today find themselves at a crossroads of tradition and modernity.

Among a hundred other documentaries and dozens of premieres, Summer Pasture jumped out at me because of the dedicated and principled filmmaking on display — not to mention the gorgeous cinematography, which was achieved without the support of a grip truck and an electrical department but rather by living in the field and grabbing shots opportunistically while putting to use solar-powered battery chargers. The film addresses timely global issues of rural self-subsistence living versus urban wage labor, and despite the faraway setting, Summer Pasture addresses universal themes through its depiction of the young couple at the heart of the film, Locho and Yama. Here’s the trailer; my interview with directors Lynn True and Nelson Walker follows. More »