Zhang Wei

Did this belief change over time?

In a way, yes. When I moved to a big city, I no longer saw blind fortune tellers but found that many blind people work as masseuses. In 2010, I happened to watch a singing performance on a TV talent show by a group of blind students and teachers from Tibet. I was touched and inspired by them. Afterwards, I learned that the prevalence of cataract in Tibet is the highest in the country because of environmental factors. But most people believed that blindness was punishment for wrongs done in one’s previous life. This marginalized the blind and made it difficult for them to function within the mainstream. But my belief is that they are unique in their own way and have extraordinary capacities and talents. I did a lot of research and then made the film.

Are the actors who you have chosen for the film really blind?

Well. Some of them are. Lobsang Turpten, ten, who portrays Thupten, can only see with his right eye and currently is a student in the Tibet Lahsa School for the Blind. Pama Gumi who plays Sonam, is 20, wholly blind, and a student in the Tibet Gyantse School for the Blind.. Sonam Wangdu who portrays Nymda, is wholly blind and is a teacher in the Tibet Lahsa School for the Blind. Karma Sangmo is a Tibetan child actress. She plays Droma in the film. Yeshi Choedon is a 12-year-old Tibetan child actor and he is Yelsen in this film.

Tibet Lahsa School for the Blind has played a significant role in this film. Right?

Right. This school was founded by blind German social worker Sabriye Tenberken in 1998. In 2010, a group of teachers and students from this school performed choral ensembles on a popular TV show called China’s Got Talent. This inspired me strongly to make a film about Tibetan blind children and their dreams. Many teachers and students in this school appeared in this film. Nyima Wangdu, the wholly blind school principal, not only appeared in the film as a teacher but also assisted the post-production team in translating Tibetan names into English. The school offered us the premises to shoot some portions of the film.

You are known to be a Harley-Davidson motorcycles fan. This played a significant role in the journey of the four blind children. Would you like to explain this?

Yes, This has a very interesting back story. In 2015, I met a friend with a similar hobby named David at a film festival in the USA. David’s twin brother had passed away at a young age and could not fulfill his dream of traveling the world on Harley-Davidson Motorcycles. In keeping with David’s request, I agreed to take his twin brother’s ashes and spread them across the globe. When I was shooting this film in Tibet, I spread the ashes at the foot of Mount Everest together with a fleet of Harley-Davidson Motorcycle bikers. Inspired by this experience, I added this small segment where these Harley-Davidson bikers help the children with lifts in one part of the journey.

Ballad from Tibet

Are the bikers in the film actors or are they bikers?

None of the bikers in the film are actors. They all are real bikers and live thousands of kilometers away from Tibet. They are passionate about promoting public good and helping the weak. They participated in the extremely difficult shoot for several weeks on the Tibetan Plateau and refused to take any payment offered by the production company.

You have touched several layers of emotions and human interactions through this film. What were you really aiming at?

I was not aiming at any thing particular except trying to demonstrate the talents of blind children. But the climax said it all. Ballad from Tibet is a paean to courage and idealism. All the relevant parties realize their dreams: the Tibetan blind children got on big screen; the biker who died before his time travelled to the other side of the world with his peers; and a Chinese filmmaker completed a film in which Harley-Davidson motorcycles could gallop on the Tibetan Plateau, a marvelous scene unseen in any other films in the past.