To Alexandra

A collage of letters and intertwined journeys across time. As explorer and writer Alexandra David-Néel recounts her Himalayan passage a century ago, a filmmaker reflects on encounters in Eastern Tibet. Across different media, both examine their positions as outsiders, dwelling on historical wounds and a self reshaped by the high plateau.

Cui Yi: ‘“Who was it written to? Who is it written to? Who will it be written to? If the consciousness behind the letters exists, can we have a dialogue?” These questions returned to me as I read the letters of Alexandra David-Néel, a writer and scholar whose Himalayan journeys were traces of her quest for truth.

Like Alexandra, I find myself an outsider in the snow lands, grappling with my place within a colonial history. I stand between East and West, the spiritual and the secular, asking where the path forward lies amid plagues, wars, and human ferocity.

I went to Eastern Tibet to teach filmmaking, yet received far more in return. Through the lenses of local filmmakers, I learned new ways of seeing the human and non-human worlds; their audiovisual landscape became integral to my own journey.’