Friday, April 20th - 7:30 pm - Bell Auditorium Wednesday, April 25th - 9:15 pm - Bell Auditorium   Director: Petr Lom   Have you ever wanted to be a tightrope walker in the circus? Or wondered how such an art can be mastered? This beautifully-filmed documentary shows us a place in which this sometimes happens: an orphanage in Xinjiang Province, China, where Uyghur youngsters of the largest Muslim minority undergo rigorous training in this ancient art.

With permission from the Chinese government, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Petr Lom (Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgystan) spent 18 months filming the struggles of tightrope proteges in “walking the tightrope” (an apt metaphor as this minority must take care to find a balance between their thousand-year old religious and cultural traditions within the secular Chinese state). The two tightrope coaches are a study in contrasts – one a taskmaster, the other an old tightrope walker who is able to engender hope in the young athletes.

Cast: Mehmet Tursun, Yasin, Aijamal, Abliz, Sargul, Jumakhun

On a Tightrope was screened in 8 international film festivals in 2006, receiving the Watch Doc Award in Warsaw; support for Lom’s film was a Sundance Film Festival Selection, 2007.

In Uyghur with English subtitles, Norway/Canada, 74 minutes, Digi-Beta, 2006.

Presented by: University of Minnesota European Studies Consortium