On March 29, after the premiere of Pema Tseden's "Snow Leopard," the film's cast and crew walked into a Beijing theater to greet the audience, all visibly emotional and in tears.

Director Jigme Trinley, the son of Pema Tseden, pays tribute to his late father at the premiere of "Snow Leopard," in Beijing, March 29, 2024. [Photo courtesy of China Film Co., Ltd.]

Back in early 2020, during his stay in Xining, Qinghai province, Pema Tseden, the esteemed Tibetan director, spoke with a friend and learned about a snow leopard killing a herder's rams. Faced with the dilemma of dealing with the predator, a nationally protected species, the herder and his family were uncertain on how to adhere to conservation laws while still seeking compensation for their loss. This story eventually became the inspiration for Pema Tseden's film, a divine and surreal story with a poetic visual style and unique ethnic narrative.

"Perhaps in my father's heart, he sympathetically captured a certain dilemma of the times occurring in Tibetan lands, which has been a theme my father has been expressing since his first Tibetan-language film up to now," said Jigme Trinley, the son of Pema Tseden and the acting director of "Snow Leopard."

He continued, "But for me and all of us, the film reveals a new world that has never been depicted through imagery before — a world where heaven, earth and humans can harmonize with each other and convey love. So, I believe that when this divine power intertwines with current real-world dilemmas, perhaps my father wanted to offer us guidance through such narratives."

The protagonist of the film, a mother snow leopard, is deeply spiritual and connects with humans on an emotional level. Although she is a CGI character, the director aimed to make her as realistic as possible. "It is my honor to be involved in this production, but it presents a big challenge," revealed visual effects director Zhan Hansu. "I suggested to the director that we use fewer close-up shots, fewer supposed interactions between the snow leopard and humans and fewer long shots to simplify the special effects work. However, when we received the raw material, we found that nothing had been reduced!"

"As far as I know," Zhan added, "the long shot at the end of the film is the longest shot with biological special effects in film history."

To bring the vivid snow leopard to the big screen, Zhang Beipeng, another visual effects director on the film, revealed that they used motion capture technology to record the movements of actress Wangdol Tso, who portrayed the animal on set. "We mainly filmed on cliffs at altitudes of 4,000 to 5,000 meters where she would kneel directly on the cliff edge and perform bit by bit, which was amazing and of great reference value for us."

This most recent Tibetan-language drama is the eighth film by Pema Tseden, who unexpectedly passed away in May 2023. He is known for highly acclaimed and award-winning films such as "The Silent Holy Stones" (2005), "Jinpa" (2018) and "Balloon" (2019). Before Tseden’s passing, "Snow Leopard" took three years to complete from script creation to final rendering. The film premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and later won the Grand Prix at the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival in November and best director at the fifth Hainan Island International Film Festival in December 2023.

Cast and crew pose for a group photo at the premiere of "Snow Leopard," in Beijing, March 29, 2024. [Photo courtesy of China Film Co., Ltd.]

As a significant work, this film is supported by China Film Co., Ltd. The film company in recent years has been promoting the development of medium and small budget art films, aiming to boost the film market's prosperity and encourage the development of ethnic minority films.

"No matter if you have seen my father's works before, I hope you can go see them after watching 'Snow Leopard,' and I hope you can approach the more authentic Tibetan land," Jigme Trinley said. "And for those of us who follow in my father's footsteps: We will take it slowly, one step at a time."