Parky At the Pictures (16/1/2026)

(Reviews of State of Statelessness; and Miss Moxy)

STATE OF STATELESSNESS.

The portmanteau film has fallen into disrepute since its postwar heyday. It was mostly beloved of European producers, who corralled the biggest names in usually French and Italian cinema to direct segments in pictures linked by a particular author or theme. Nowadays, it's primarily the preserve of the horror genre. But the Drung Film-makers Collective has brought four Tibetans together to consider the subject of exile in State of Statelessness.

Starting proceedings is Tenzin Tsetan Choklay's `Where the River Ends', which is set in Ho Chi Minh City, which stands on the Mekong River that has its source, as the Za Qu, in the Lasagongma Spring on Mount Guozongmucha in the Tibetan Plateau. As they wait for the ferry to take them home, Tibetan father, Tenzin (Tenzin Choegyal), tells his young daughter, Pema (Lê Phương Linh), about the journey the river takes and she asks if he had swum to Vietnam, as she makes a small boat out of her ticket. Arriving home after pausing in the rain to pick up some fallen seed pods, they find mother talking to a neighbour, who is worried that the dams the Chinese are building for hydro-electric power are impacting upon the waters downstream. Tenzin checks on Pema doing her homework and is saddened when she challenges his theory about the Mekong linking him to home by using the samsara-inspired water cycle to eradicate beginnings and endings because the water that flows from source to sea will always be returned in the form of rain.

The scene switches to India for Sonam Tseten's `Bardo: In-Between', where Nyima-la and youngest daughter, Yangchen (Kalsang Dolma), are listening to an astrologer advising them on the best way to ensure that the spirit of Nyima-la's late wife is reincarnated into a good family. However, Yangchen doesn't see why she is not allowed to attend the cremation when her older sister is. Bhuti (Tenzin Pema) has gone to live in France and Yangchen's husband, Dorji, has recently relocated there, too. However, he has got his sister-in-law pregnant and Yangchen refuses to speak to Bhuti until they go into the forest to burn their mother's clothing on a bonfire.

Yangchan has also hidden the brass bracelet that the astrologer urged Nyima-la to place in the coffin and he is fretting (while knowing nothing of the sororal strife). He is keen for Yangchan to reunite with her husband, but she has decided to stay and care for him in his old age, even though she resents being made to miss the cremation when her father had already broken the astrologer's suggestion for the bier to leave the house through an eastern-facing door (as there isn't one). As the story ends, Yangchan is digging in the forest, perhaps to bury the bangle?

The Himalayan town of Dharamshala provides the backdrop for Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin's `A Little Cloud', which centres on Sonam (Tenzin Phuntsok), a thangka artist who is expecting a visit from Jigdal (Tenor Sharlo), a former classmate who has settled in New York. However, he's in the doghouse with wife Kesang (Tenzin Pema), who is still mourning her daughter and desperate to move abroad, as she hates living in Dharamshala (which suits Sonam, as he is devoted to the Dalai Lama). She is also not amused at having to waste money on supper and a bottle of whisky for a stranger who hasn't got the courtesy to call and let them know he's running late.

When Jigdal finally shows, Kesang stays in the kitchen and eavesdrops, as Sonam gives his friend a scroll painting and insists that everything is going well (apart from the tragic loss of his child and Kesang's refusal to have another). Jigdal has brought his own hooch and makes the teetotal Sonam have a glass. He also breaks off to take a phone call from an associate having trouble getting rent out of some migrant tenants and Jigdal tells his friend that the US needs to elect Donald Trump again.

He tells Sonam that he fears for the future, as things will change when the Dalai Lama dies, and urges him to come to the States and make big money. Kesang brings in some steaming momos and Jidgal digs in. However, he gets a call from another old friend (who has to be reminded that Sonam has a limp before he remembers him) and he makes his excuses to leave, taking his hooch with him (but not the whisky or the scroll). Distraught at how badly the reunion has gone, Sonam sinks to the sofa and starts to cry and Kesang shoots him a withering look before returning to the kitchen.

Although it starts in Wisconsin, Tsering Tashi Gyalthang's `At the End, the Rain Stops' also comes to Dharamshala, as Tenzin (Tenzin Tseten)

arrives to sell the house left by the father who had recently died after a car crash. Mother Kelsang has arranged for him to stay with his former babysitter, Acha Pedon, and she introduces Tenzin to her workshy son, Norbu (Thupten Dhargay). He barely remembers the place, but moves in while he arranges the completion of the various religious ceremonies by the local monks.

As he's sorting out things to give to the nearby school, Tenzin finds a box containing photographs and a card with the name Tenzin Metok printed on it. He suspects something about a child who died young, but Acha simply tell him to show the card to his mother. Tenzin gets teary while burning old photos and Norbu takes him into the forest for a break. As they lie in the shade, Tenzin asks Norbu if he has a dream and he replies that it's hard to plan when you are stateless and Tenzin admits that he often feels like an outsider in the United States. In order to cheer Tenzin up, Norbu takes him to a firework dance in the town and Acha coaxes them into having a bop with her. Having released a white butterfly trapped against the window pane during the night (perhaps symbolising his sister's spirit?), Tenzin bids farewell to Acha and Norbu and scatters his father's ashes on a lake before casting a white khata scarf on the surface of the water. He may well have found the place where he belongs, but he knows he has to return to his mother and their life in Wisconsin.

Produced by Tenzin Tsetan Choklay, Yodon Thonden, Sonam Tseten, and Tenzin Kalden and notable as the first Tibetan anthology made in exile, State of Statelessness will obviously mean more to those with connections to the region, as each short is filled with symbolic details that most outsiders will miss. Moreover, the opening photographic montage contains images that will only be meaninguful to a select few. Nevertheless, it's still easy to empathise with the characters separated from their homeland who are forced to endure fractured familial relationships, a gnawing sense of non-belonging, and a debilitating uncertainty about their own futures and that of Tibet itself.

Based in Vietnam, Tsering Tashi Gyalthang took the lead in Khyentse Norbu's Looking For a Lady With Fangs and a Moustache (2019). However, he has also directed a number of shorts, including The River (2010), Turtle Soup (2012), A Tale From Van Phuc Village (2012), and Huong (2016), several of which share the juvenile perspective he adopts for the first vignette. Father and daughter sing a couple of songs that will be readily familiar to Tibetan viewers, who will also be moved by the father's realisation that his child can never share his depth of passion for a place she has never seen and whose unique status in his mind is just part of a cycle of acceptance in hers.

Those acquainted with Tibetan Buddhism will know that bardo is the state between death and rebirth and Sonam Tseten traps two sisters in this limbo in his poignant narrative. Had Yangchan's husband not gone to France to prepare for her to join him, he would not have embarked upon an affair with Bhuti. Thus, statelessness has separated the siblings on a geographical and a psychological plain and it's clear the distance between them will never close. Sonam explored similar themes in his earlier shorts, Pema (2019) and Settlement (2020), but he also adds swipes here at the patriarchal abuse of religious rubric and the importance that tradition and ritual still have for those in exile, even when they can be breached for convenience.

Tenzin Sonam and Ritu Sarin became the pioneers of Tibetan Exile Cinema with Dreaming Lhasa (2005) and The Sweet Requiem (2018), although their most important contribution has been the documentaries, Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet, A Stranger in My Native Land (both 1998), and The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet's Struggle For Freedom (2009). Their actuality experience informs Jigdal's worldview, as he represents the grasping capitalism and chauvinist populism that many exiles are forced to confront (and to which some aspire). His aggressive contempt for Sonam and his enclosed traditionalism gives Kesang pause for thought, as she is determined to leave the place where her daughter died, with or without her husband. He is also grieving, but his rejection at the hands of the school captain who had protected him from bullies because of his leg removes the emotional crutch on which he had always been able to lean. One suspects the final shot of him painting at his easel denotes that he has stayed on alone in Dharamsala. But his future is every bit as uncertain as Kesang's, wherever she might be.

Tenzin Tsetan Choklay's concluding segment follows on from such shorts as History of Momos (2007), Elif's Seoulitude (2007), and Tell Tale (2008), as well as the acclaimed documentary, Bringing Tibet Home (2013). Putting an exilic spin on the town and country mouse notion, the story employs subtle tells to contrast the personalities and expectations of Tenzin and Norbu, the Americanised youth who left and the local boy who had no choice but to stay. The scene with the butterfly is achingly sad, as it implies that the sister Tenzin never knew he had is watching over him and the fact that he sets her free leaves us with the hope that he might stop feeling as though he is watching life passing him by outside his window.

With each section being deftly designed and evocatively photographed, this anthology offers poignant insights into the realities of statelessness and the state of our world. It leave us with plenty to think about.

MISS MOXY.

There have been several films about remarkable animals finding their way home. Leading the way was Disney's The Incredible Journey (1963), which was directed by Fletcher Markle and scripted by James Algar from a novel by Sheila Burnford. This was remade as Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993), which had its own sequel, Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco (1996). A W. Bruce Cameron book provided the basis for Netflix's A Dog's Way Home (2019), which follows Bella on a 400-mile journey to find her owner in the company of a cougar nicknamed, `Big Kitten'.

Dudley Moore provided the narration when a pug dog goes in search of his orange tabby pal to bring him back to the family farm in Masanori Hata's

Milo and Otis (1986), while a cat, a Golden Retriever, a ring-tailed lemur, and a capybara take a boat trip to find dry land in Gints Zilbalodis's Oscar-nominated, Flow (2024). Directed by the Dutch duo of Vincent Bal and Wip Vernooij, Miss Moxy isn't quite in the same league. But it's been thoughtfully made, with empathetic characters, learnable lessons, and some catchy tunes.

Although she hangs with a cat gang called `The Pink Ladies', Moxy (Tess Bryant) is devoted to her nine year-old owner, Josie Lockhart (Matilda Boselli). The feeling is mutual, but parents Hanna and Rudy (Debby Phillips and Vincent Broes) are not pleased when Josie smuggles Moxy in her holdall when they set off on holiday to a farm in France. Rita (Ella Leyers) greets them warmly, but her dog, Brute (Pieter Embrechts), chases Moxy around the garden and Hanna warns Josie that her pet will have to stay indoors for the duration.

Rita is planning to enter Brute in an animal talent contest, but she is so impressed by Moxy's ability to play the piano with Josie that she hides her in the barn when the Lockharts are called away because grandma has had a fall. Fortunately, Moxy is able to trick Brute into opening her cage door and she manages to escape. But he is so intrigued by her description of Doggo Paradise that he follows her and she is forced to accept him as a travelling companion when he rescues her from a gun-toting farmer.

Moxy has also picked up a wise old African swallow named Ayo (Richard Wells), who knows her hometown tower (with its green beanie top) and promises to show her the way. As he has a damaged wing, however, he has to ride on the cat's back. He's more than happy to hitch a lift in a truck with the tower on the side and enjoys watching the singing sheep in the back. But Rita has fitted Brute with a tracking device and she tries to ram the lorry with her pink car, only to cause it to crash and allow all the animals to escape.

Following the river that Ayo knows goes through the northern wetlands, the new friends find themselves in a town. Moxy tries to teach Brute not to obey orders, as he is so used to doing everything that Rita tells him. However, he feels let down when Moxy mistakes a grey street cat for Madame Caviar from her favourite food range and follows her. She soon realises the error of her ways, when Madame Caviar uses her as a decoy to raid a fish delivery lorry and Moxy has to be rescued by the truck sheep from the knife-throwing driver.

Given a lesson on friendship by a loner rat named Gerard (Mark Irons), Moxy finds herself on a boat heading north. She spots Brute and Ayo on the deck of another craft and cat and dog have to dive into the canal to save Ayo after he flakes out after flapping on an injured wing delivering messages between the feuding friends. They manage to evade Rita and divest Brute of his tracker collar before scrambling on to a barge, where Max and his grandmother make a potion to restore Ayo to health.

Meanwhile, Josie is fretting because no one has replied to her missing cat message. But Max spots it while posting pics of Brute and Ayo and he calls her on her birthday to let her know where to come in Brussels to collect her pet. Unfortunately, Rita is eavesdropping and snatches Brute off the boat (while he is sulking after learning that Doggo Paradise isn't real) and takes him to the Animals Got Talent studio, where she agrees to make him tightrope walk across a wall of fire to secure his late entry. Moxy has followed the pink car and she frees the other contestants to help save Brute and he comes home with the Lockharts to join Betsy, Constance, and Mitzy in the feline crew after leader Pink refuses to have anything to do with dogs.

Inspired by the story of a Yorkshire tabby named Boo, who showed up at a veterinary surgery in Pocklington after being missing for 13 years, this is a fine way to start the animation year. It's hardly demanding and the lessons are overly familiar. But there's enough incident and sincerity to keep the action rattling along like Rita's rusty 2CV.

The character designs are pleasing, as are the contrasting town and country backdrops. There's also a refreshing absence of those video game-style chase and hurtle sequences that are usually de rigueur in CGI animations. Moreover, screenwriter Maureen Versprille has woven in some nifty a cappella songs, which have been wittily translated to allow the animals to express their feelings during the high and low points of the journey. With Tessa Bryant breezily capturing Moxy's catitude, Ella Leyers making a splendidly blowsy villain, and Richard Wells piping up with some canny words of avian wisdom, this should keep accompanying adults as amused as their young charges.