BALLOON
A FILM BY PEMA TSEDEN
Drama | 2019 | 102 mins
Country: China
Cast: Jinpa, Sonam Wangmo, Yangshik Tso
Language: Tibetan
English Subtitles | AD | SDH
Theatrical release: 24 September 2021
Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.
The Tibetan plateau in the 1980s. No more condoms. No more children allowed. No easy answers. A lyrical and beguiling film from one of the world’s finest directors.
Sex, faith and politics collide in Pema Tseden's exceptional new film. When Drolkar’s two boisterous youngest sons blow up the household’s few remaining condoms, mistaking them for balloons, she’s left with an impossible decision. China has just introduced its One Child Policy and with three children already, there’s no way she can have another. But her husband, Dargye, is still as horny as one of his prize rams...
Tseden deftly balances his challenging subject matter with moments of humour and great tenderness. With its cool colour palette, attentive handheld camerawork, and painterly passages that seem to transpire somewhere between this world and the next, Balloon approaches its story with a sense of wonder and features scene-stealing performances from the two young boys.
"A gorgeously intimate family drama and an idiosyncratic artistic statement flecked with humour and sorrow, but alive always to the co-existence of the banal with the spiritual."
Jessica Kiang, Variety
"Pema Tseden casts a typically wry eye over the collision between modernity and tradition in 1980s Tibet, paying particular attention to gentle comic details, delicate layers of symbolism and improbable shots of sheep being transported on motorbikes."
★★★★
Wendy Ide, The Observer
"This deceptively simple story ends up speaking volumes about how love, sex, marriage and parenting sit at a paradoxical remove from the dictates of the state, and the parochial attitudes of the older generation."
★★★★
David Jenkins, Little White Lies
"mix of tranquillity, playfulness and a touch of melancholy"
★★★★
Phuong Le, The Guardian
Pema Tseden was born on 3 December 1969 to a family of nomadic herders in the Amdo region of Tibet. Pema long held a fascination for storytelling, both through literature and cinema. As a writer, he had numerous works published in both Tibetan and Mandarin, many having been translated into other various other languages.
Pema became the first ethnic Tibetan to attend the prestigious Beijing Film Academy where he studied directing and scriptwriting. He was particularly influenced by Tibetan cultural traditions, oral literature and folk tales, depicting striking representations of a largely unknown Tibet and contemporary Tibetan society to the wider world. All of Pema’s films are shot in his native Amdo and are either entirely or mostly in his native Amdo dialect of Tibetan.
On 8 May 2023, at over 4,400m above sea level near the high-altitude lake of Yamdruk Tso, Pema was suddenly taken ill and passed away at the age of 53.
Pema is widely considered to be the leading light of the 'Tibetan New Wave' - a pioneer and trailblazer who inspired a new generation of Tibetan filmmakers inside Tibet working amid challenging conditions.
THE BALLOONS OF CINEMA
To celebrate the launch of Balloon, we partnered with BFI FAN to commission a short essay film from the writer and video essayist, Jessica McGoff. The film explores the role of balloons in film across the ages. You can watch it below.
