The Gau Box

Creative Statement

As I remember it, death is a subject Tibetans often talk about casually, and everyone makes their own preparations. But how would an old man with no family prepare for his own funeral? How would he settle where his body and soul will go? My story unfolds from this question and follows the confusions an old man living alone faces as he "makes an appointment with death".

Synopsis

Dongbu, an old man living alone, watches people his age pass away one after another. Feeling that his own days are numbered, he wants a proper funeral after his death. He first finds a living Buddha and asks him to perform the rites for his soul after he dies, and decides to give his grazing rights on the mountain pasture to the villagers who will handle the rest of his funeral. But Dongbu had not planned for the living Buddha who was to perform his rites to pass away suddenly before him. Even less did he expect that the rights to his pasture after his death would spark a dispute between distant relatives and the villagers, who ignore the fact that he is still alive.

Genre:

Drama

Director/Screenwriter:

Cairang Xiangxiu

Producer:

Jiuxian Cairang

Executive Producer:

Sonthar Gyal | Du Qingchun

About the Director/Screenwriter

Cairang Xiangxiu: has worked on the production of many films as assistant director, editor and camera assistant. Credits include The Sun Beaten Path, River, Ala Changso, The Onlooker, Lhamo and Skalbe and Mission to Mars. In 2017 he won the Sapphire Horn Award at the first Original Screenplay Competition for Film and Television of the Tibetan Areas of China; in 2018 he won the Editor Award at the 13th Chinese Young Generation Film Forum.

About the Producer

Jiuxian Cairang: producer and actor. Credits include Drifting with the Wind, Snow Leopard, Wangmu's Summer and Finding the Cow.

Logline

A series of absurd events that unfold as an old man living alone entrusts others with arranging his funeral.