European Premiere | In Competition | White Mulberry Award Candidate
China, 2025, 100’, Tibetan, Mandarin
Directed by: Kangdrun
Screenplay: Kangdrun
Cinematography (color): Li Siwei, Tashi Namgyal
Editing: Liu Xinzhu
Production Design: Dram Dui
Music: Wang Chuan
Sound: Bobo Lau
Producers: Zhang Qianqian, Liang Ying
Executive Producers: Lu Shu, Norbu Tsering
Production Company: Tibetan Antelope Films Co., Ltd.
Cast: Tsering Yangkyi (Adult Samgy), Tsekyi Metok (Young & Teen Samgyi), Tangsang Lhamo (Adult Lhamo), Dechen Banzom (Young & Teen Lhamo), Norbu Tsering (Older Father), Tubdain Jigme (Younger Father), Tsring Tundrup (Suoso)
Date of First Release in Territory: TBA
A film of seemingly formal simplicity but remarkable psychological refinement marks the debut on the Chinese cinematic landscape of a significant new Tibetan female voice. Kangdrun, a young filmmaker born in Lhasa, returned to her hometown after graduating, positioning herself within the trajectory of contemporary Tibetan cinema established by directors such as Sonthar Gyal and the late Pema Tseden. Unlike her predecessors, however, Kangdrun belongs to a younger generation and portrays a Tibet far removed from the familiar conflict between tradition and modernity: her Tibet is that of urban Gen-Z youth who, in Lhasa, now lead lives not unlike those of their peers in Shanghai or Beijing.
Linka Linka tells the story of Samgyi, a young woman who, after studying in Shanghai and Beijing, returns to Tibet to her father, a renowned intellectual, with the intention of making a film about her childhood. Their relationship, complex and laden with mutual expectations, forms one of the emotional cores of the film: the father is proud of his daughter’s intelligence and independence yet he hopes she will try to secure stable employment with the local television station. Samgyi, on the other hand, appears to be unsure what path her future should take, and is for the time being wholly absorbed in her cinematic project. She uses the film she is shooting to confront an embarrassing episode from her past, which has left her with an unresolved sense of guilt towards Lamho, a primary school classmate. Their chance meeting as adults reveals an unexpected fracture between memory and reality.
One of the most original aspects of
Linka Linka is its layered narrative structure, in which the film-within-the-film, the present, the past and the memory of the past constantly intertwine. Kangdrun constructs a kind of infinite mirror that questions the subjectivity of remembrance and the unstable nature of truth: what Samgyi reconstructs on film does not necessarily coincide with the experience of the other person involved, revealing how every memory is partial and personal.
The film’s Chinese title, “One Night and Three Summers,” evokes the shared experience of many young Tibetans of the director’s generation, who as adolescents were sent to study in major Chinese cities and returned home only during the summer holidays, forging a fragmented relationship with their place of origin. The international title,
Linka Linka, refers to the long Tibetan summers lived in the open air, of picnics and gatherings with family and friends. The narrative unfolds across three summers and one night, the latter set in the present, during which Samgyi and Lamho meet again as adults.
The directing style is firmly anchored in reality, to the extent that the film was shot over the course of three years (2020, 2023 and 2024), meaning the actresses playing the parts of first children and then teenagers matured on a parallel track to their characters.
The soundtrack, composed largely of Tibetan hip-hop and rap, contributes to shaping the film’s contemporary identity, capturing the soundscape of present-day Lhasa: a city where electric cars and yaks cohabit at the margins of urban life, amid coffee bars and nightclubs. With
Linka Linka, Kangdrun offers an unprecedented and deeply contemporary perspective on social reality and on the historical moment Tibetan culture is experiencing, one that is still so rarely represented from the viewpoint of the younger generations.
Kangdrun
Born in Lhasa (1995), Tibet Autonomous Region, Kangdrun is a Tibetan screenwriter and director. Her work often portrays Lhasa’s younger generation and subcultural communities with a delicate touch. Her short film Orlo with Karma was selected at First International Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival in 2025. Linka Linka is her debut feature. It was selected in the Asian Future Competition at the 38th Tokyo International Film Festival.
FILMOGRAPHY
2025 – Linka Linka