The documentary Ganden: A Joyful Land (2019) chronicles Ganden Monastery, which was founded in the 15th century. It became a leading institution in the central Tibetan cultural region for Buddhist learning and ritual practice. When the site was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, many of the monks who had lived at Ganden resettled in India, where a new monastery by the same name was established in 1966. 

The UVA Tibet Center will be screening the film, followed by an in-person Q & A with director Ngawang Choephel, Thursday, April 13, starting at 6:15 p.m. in Campbell 153. Ngawang was the first Tibetan to win at the Sundance Film Festival, when he was awarded a World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Documentary in 2009 for Tibet in Song. A 1992 graduate of the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) in north India, Ngawang was then selected for a Fulbright scholarship to study international music and filmmaking at Middlebury College, where he was later awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree. Recently, in May 2021, he was named the director of his alma mater, the Tibetan Institute for Performing Arts. He is also the founder of Guge Productions.