Spirituality, tradition and conspiracy alternate in this gripping screenplay where once again the consuming feud between the Chinese regime and the Tibetan people is highlighted.

Message to Shigatse written by Don Thompson and based on the book “The Search for the Panchen Lama” by Isabel Hilton, is the fascinating story of the search for the most important figure for the Tibetan people right after the Dalai Lama: the Panchen Lama-- considered the reincarnation of the Buddha of Knowledge, who voluntarily chooses to reincarnate to teach the Dharma,

With a fantastic descriptive ability, Thompson leads us brilliantly on a fascinating journey that touches the Dalai Lama's headquarters in India to all-but-inaccessible monasteries and villages in the Himalayas; where visions, oracles, espionage and races against time keep us in suspense and also help us understand more closely one of the most atrocious political and religious struggles of our time.

The mysterious death of the tenth Panchen Lama, Choekyi Gyaltsen, in 1989 opens the doors to this adventure where Alison McPherson, a BBC journalist and scholar of Chinese politics, will find herself playing a totally unexpected and important role.
Her thirst for knowledge and truth will make her become a sort of "pawn" helper of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan monks, but also the target of the Chinese government which sees in her a new reactionary conspiracy theorist opposed to the regime.
We will go through with her the hardships of a woman who divides her time between family and work, her eyes will be ours and her stubbornness will be the engine that will push us to understand the battle between the Chinese regime and the Dalai Lama.

This old fracture is the fulcrum of everything, the impossibility of finding a meeting point, the inability to keep politics out of what is  obviously political.

The Panchen Lama, the second most important incarnation in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, is a source of disagreements, subterfuges and mysteries that make everything extremely exciting.
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A child of just six years old - Gedhun Choekyi, chosen by the Dalai Lama, elected on 14 May 1995,  and then kidnapped - will be the symbol of this war between two opposing factions and of a mystery that still today continues to ignite souls. 

As stated in the script: 'It’s not a matter of being objective. It’s a matter of saving lives, and of preserving Tibet’s spiritual identity”

--London Movie Awards
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​You can find the review on the festival website here.