Festival Films A-Z

On a Tightrope

Production

Piraya Film
Torstein Grude
Lervigsveien 22
4016 Stavanger
Norwegen
Tel.: +47 51 11 63 36
Fax: +47 51 11 63 37

Camera

Petr Lom

Cut

Petr Lom

Worldsales

Films Transit International Inc.
252 Gouin Boulevard East
H3L 1A8 Montreal
Kanada
Tel.: +1 51 48 44 33 58
Fax: +1 51 48 44 72 98

CDN/N 2006, Regie: Petr Lom, OmeU, 60 min.

Synopsis

On a TightropeThis is a film about four children living in an orphanage in the Xinjiang province of China. The children are Uighurs -- members of China's eight-million-strong largest Muslim minority.

To prevent Uighur separatism, China has enforced a policy of cultural and political assimilation in Xinjiang: religion is particularly targeted. (Human Rights Watch has reported that 10,000 Uighurs are political prisoners, and that hundreds have been executed. China claims they are terrorists.)

Our film shows the reality of the Uighurs through a small story: a story of four Uighur children dreaming of becoming champion tightrope walkers, an ancient Uighur tradition.

The children start learning to tightrope-walk, but within a few months, they are judged inadequate by their coach. Now some of their dreams change: one wants to become a teacher, another a professional singer. One of them, however, feels he is simply too small to be good at anything. Eventually, even the one judged most talented at tightrope walking, and the one who dreams of a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for tightrope walking, is let go by the unscrupulous coach who seems only interested in money.

One year later, a different coach comes to the orphanage. With love and kindness, he turns the children's initial failure at tightrope walking into success. The film culminates with their performance on a high wire - without a safety net - in front of their entire home town.

The children live their entire lives without a safety net: some are orphans, others have been abandoned by parents too poor or uncaring to keep them. And like all Uighurs, they are forced to walk on a metaphorical tightrope: trying to balance between Islam that is central to Uighur identity and a Communist China that rules Xinjiang with an iron fist, restricting all freedom, especially their religion.

This is the first film to ever document the Chinese policy on religion in Xinjiang, which prohibits minors from practicing their faith, and is in violation of international law.

Biography

Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan (2004), On a Tightrope (2006)

Filmography

Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan (2004), On a Tightrope (2006)

Dates

1903.10.200715:15Festsaal
7207.10.200717:00Filmhaus