Ani Bond: Choying Drolma (2023) – Screening and Dialogue with Director Fen Jennifer Lin
March 20 @ 2:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Ani Bond: Choying Drolma (2023),
Screening and Dialogue with Director Fen Jennifer Lin
Discussants:
Georgios Halkias, Glorious Sun Professor in Buddhist Studies & Director, Centre of Buddhist Studies, HKU
Catherine Hardie, Assistant professor in Buddhist Studies, Centre of Buddhist Studies, HKU
Crystal Kwok, Lecturer and Filmmaker, Department of History, HKU
Moderator:
Ji Li, Associate professor, Department of History, HKU
Date: Friday, March 20, 2026
Time: 2:30-5:00 pm Hong Kong Time
Venue: LE1, (Library Extension), Main Campus, The University of Hong Kong
All are welcome. Registration is required.
https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=105224
The award-winning 2023 documentary Ani Bond: Choying Drolma follows the inspirational journey of the “rock-star” Nepali nun Ani Choying Drolma. Fleeing an abusive father, the thirteen-year-old Ani sought refuge in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery where the nuns taught her to sing. Her stunning voice captured the attention of a visiting American musician who brought her singing to global attention. Ani Choying Drolma has used her international fame to campaign for girls’ education and, in 2000, she established a modern school for novice nuns, Arya Tara, in Kathmandu. Several of the girls, who come from some of the poorest and most remote areas of Nepal, Tibet, and India, share their stories in the documentary. Despite her achievements, the trauma of Ani Choying’s past continues to haunt her and, in an effort to confront it, the film sees her fulfill her father’s dying wish and travel to his hometown in Qinghai, China.
Directors Fen Jennifer Lin and Shan Bai spent seven years bringing Ani Choying Drolma’s astounding story to the screen. The documentary won the NETPAC Award for the Best Asian/Pacific Film and the Audience Award for Documentary at the 39th Warsaw International Film Festival, as well as Best Documentary Feature and Best Music and Sound at the 13th China Academy Awards of Documentary Film. Bai Shan is an independent director and producer. Fen Jennifer Lin is a media sociologist and a documentary filmmaker. She is Professor of Media and Communication and serves as Associate Vice President (Global Strategies) and Director of ArtX Hong Kong Institute at the City University of Hong Kong. She has written extensively and bilingually on media and political communication, information governance, state-society relations, China’s technology and innovation system, and social and cultural change. She obtained her BA in Economics from Peking University, MS in Statistics, and PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago. For more on the film, please follow: https://www.instagram.com/lin.and.bai.studio?igsh=NXZjbG5qZG9tZmNp&utm_source=qr
Or
https://youtube.com/@f.jenniferlin5671?si=9gMhkL1v_rQN942Q
This event is held as part of the course GLAS2141: Women and Gender in Asia, with the support of the Department of History, the Committee on Gender Equity and Diversity (CGED), the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC), and the Centre of Buddhist Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Hong Kong.