Tenzing Sonam

Tenzing Sonam was born in Darjeeling in northeastern India to Tibetan refugee parents. Following his graduation from Delhi University, he worked for a year in the Tibetan government-in-exile, based in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala in northern India. He then travelled for a number of years, spending time in Switzerland, New York, Scottsdale (Arizona) and Los Angeles before ending up in Berkeley where, in 1985, he completed his Masters degree in Journalism at the University of California’s Graduate School of Journalism, specializing in documentary filmmaking.

Ritu Sarin was born in New Delhi. She finished her schooling in London and then returned to India to continue her further studies at Delhi University. After getting her undergraduate degree, she worked in Brussels for three years as a marketing representative for the Tea Board of India. She then left her job to pursue her first passion -- cinema. She did her graduate studies in film and video at the California College of the Arts, in Oakland, finishing in 1986.

While students in the Bay Area, Ritu and Tenzing worked on their first documentary: The New Puritans: The Sikhs of Yuba City. This marked the beginning of a professional and personal partnership that has endured for more than two decades. They were married in India in 1987. That year, they moved to London where they lived until 1996 and established their company, White Crane Films.

Their subsequent documentaries include: The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche, The Trials of Telo Rinpoche, A Stranger in My Native Land, and The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet.

In 1996, they returned to India with their two young children and settled in Dharamsala. It was during their stay here, living among the exiled Tibetan community, that the seeds for a feature film were planted. This film, Dreaming Lhasa, was completed in early 2005 and will be released later this year.

They currently live in New Delhi.

Films

• The Reincarnation of Khensur Rinpoche
• The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet
• A Stranger in My Native Land
• The Thread of Karma
• The Trials of Telo Rinpoche