© Antony Gormley's Waste Man commissioned by Artangel for Penny Woolcock's feature film Exodus
Director: Puhua Dongzhi (China)
Year: 2006
Run time: 52'
Location/Ethnic group: China
Language: In Tibetan with English subtitles
Production/Distribution: pending
Sgrolmamtsho is a peasant woman of 35 who lives in an impoverished agricultural community in the Tibetan province of Amdo. When she got married in 1993, she was only 21 and had no experience of work.
Through following her daily life, the film aims to show what traditional working life is like for peasant Tibetan women. It shows them fetching water, feeding livestock, milking, cleaning the stables, cooking, household religious activity, weeding fields, transporting manure to the fields and fetching wood for fuel. The images are supported by a commentary by Sgrolmamtsho about her life and her family.
Puhua Donghzi, whose Tibetan name is 'Phagspadon'grub, is the younger brother of Sgrolmamtsho's husband, Don'grub. He is the youngest of nine siblings and grew up in the same community. In 2003, when he was 21, he passed an extremely competitive examination to be admitted to the English Training Program at Qinghai Normal University, in Qinghai province, northwest China. Here he learnt to make films whilst producing training videos with an English teacher. Tibetan Woman's Life is his third film and has received positive reviews for the easy rapport with the subjects, arising from the fact that he is a member of the community himself.