About the Film
Echoes of a Free Tibet and a Father's Fading Memory
In 1959, as the Dalai Lama fled Chinese occupation across the Himalayas, thousands of Tibetans followed him into exile in India. More than six decades later, TC Tethong—former deputy to the Dalai Lama and one of the last generations to remember a free Tibet—begins to lose the memories that connect him to that world.
As his family helps to piece together the past, a remarkable archive brings that history vividly to life: photographs, letters, and never-before-seen 16mm footage of a Tibetan settlement carved from the South Indian jungle. Alongside this history unfolds the unexpected love story of TC and Judy, a young Canadian volunteer who chose to build a life alongside Tibetans in exile.
Featuring rare reflections from an aging Dalai Lama, Far From Home weaves one family's story with the history of a people determined to preserve their identity and memory. As one generation begins to disappear, can remembering itself become an act of resistance?
Director's Statement
Far From Home began as a way to ensure that our children would have the chance to hear their grandparents’ extraordinary stories in their own words. But TC’s long-held wish was to share their archive with younger Tibetans—and with the world—and he asked me, his daughter-in-law and a filmmaker, to help him fulfill that wish. As we digitized fragile film reels that had lain dormant in tin cans for more than fifty years, what emerged was a rare and extraordinary visual record of a people rebuilding their lives in exile.
This is a story that could only have been told from within the family, with full trust, participation, and guidance as the filming progressed alongside TC’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease. As TC’s memories began to fade, the loss of his personal history came to echo a larger struggle to preserve the history, culture, and identity of his people.
Filmed in Canada, India, and Chinese-occupied Tibet across two decades, Far From Home became a film about what is inherited and remembered, but ultimately, what must be carried forward—before time, illness, or forces of erasure can take it away.
TC Tethong
TC TETHONG was born in Lhasa before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and became one of the Dalai Lama’s close political aides after his escape over the Himalayas in 1959. In the late 1960s, while helping establish a Tibetan refugee settlement in South India with his new Canadian wife, Judy, TC filmed his people starting over.
judy Tethong
JUDY TETHONG arrived in India as a young Canadian volunteer. What began as urgent humanitarian work grew into a life’s purpose inseparable from a remarkable love story with TC. Together, they devoted their lives, first, to helping Tibetans survive in exile, and ultimately, to preserving Tibetan identity.
The archive
Far From Home brings a remarkable archive of personal photos, never-before-seen film reels and letters to life, transforming stories that had existed largely in memory and oral history into a vivid, living record. The images offer a rare window into a vanished world—allowing us not only to hear how one generation survived exile and rebuilt their lives, but to see it for ourselves.
Losel Tethong
Deyden Tethong
Lhadon Tethong
A Family Effort
For siblings Losel, Deyden, and Lhadon, the stories they grew up with became the compass for their individual journeys and convictions. Their voices bring the film a deeply personal perspective on what it means to inherit, and carry a history forward.
Tibetan activist and producer, Deyden Tethong, was part of the team behind the Tibetan Freedom Concerts of the 1990s and recently co-created and executive produced podcast Freedom Needs a Soundtrack exploring the concerts 30 years later, and music’s power to create change. She serves as Impact Producer on Far From Home.
Lhadon Tethong is a Tibetan activist and strategist advancing Tibetan rights through frontline organizing, strategic nonviolence, and technology. As co-founder and director of Tibet Action Institute, she brings the realities of China’s occupation to governments, the UN, communities and journalists worldwide. She serves as advisor on Far From Home.
“An exceptional and touchingly humane film and a must-see. Tibet’s proud traditions and culture are the compelling backdrop to universal themes of diasporic loss and longing.”
Shamim Sarif, UK filmmaker