‘Snow Leopard Sisters’ review: Indigenous conservationists fight for change in the high Himalayas

Dirs: Sonam Choekyi Lama, Ben Ayers, Andrew Lynch. UK. 2025. 96mins

The spectacular-looking Snow Leopard Sisters deftly illuminates international considerations by means of private tales. Charting the friendship between two indigenous girls within the excessive Himalayas, it conveys a vivid sense of the tensions between custom and modernity concerning conservation points, way of life decisions and communities attempting to flee the lengthy shadow of patriarchy. Severe-minded however brimming with visible and human curiosity attraction, it may comply with within the footsteps of Himalayas-set Sundance 2024 documentary Agent Of Happiness (2024) in attracting the eye of festivals, documentary channels and specialist distributors.

Brimming with visible and human curiosity attraction

Documentary’s capacity to put the viewer within the coronary heart of unseen worlds is vividly illustrated as conservationist Tshiring Lhamu Lama travels alone by means of the mountains round her hometown of Dolpo in northern Nepal. Surrounded by lofty, snow-covered peaks, she fastidiously navigates a slender ridge in what seems like a path to Shangri-la. The majesty of the setting is in stark distinction to the hazards that lie throughout. Tshiring has been a leopard conservationist for the previous 10 years, a interval by which their numbers have continued to say no. Now, she checks hid cameras to see what they may have recorded. Tshiring recollects that, “ The primary time I noticed a snow leopard I fell in love”. The footage she uncovers underlines the grace and great thing about the creatures.

Native herders are much less enamoured of the snow leopards that prey on their animals. Cellphone footage exhibits the evening one household in Dolpo misplaced 45 goats to an assault. On the similar time that Tshiring is attempt to shield the snow leopard inhabitants, some locals are intent on torturing, beating and killing the animals. In Dolpo, we’re additionally launched to Tenzin Bhuti Gurung, a soulful teenager whose life has reached a crossroads. Her sister has died and her father is in jail. She has been taken out of faculty to have a tendency the household herd. There’s a rising stress for her to marry as it’s thought of “unacceptable to not have a person in the home”. Tenzin secures one concession from her household – an organized marriage is positioned on maintain till she has accomplished a quick apprenticeship with Tshiring.

Over two weeks, the ladies work collectively, bonding and discovering frequent floor. Tshiring turns into mentor and function mannequin, exhibiting {the teenager} that it’s doable to reside as an impartial lady. She additionally converts Tenzin to her love of the snow leopards and perception within the want for sensible options to sustaining the protection of native herds. Concord requires that there’s room for everybody.

Snow Leopard Sisters has a fearless, indomitable central determine in Tshiring, who treks by means of the mountain go to Dolpo carrying her toddler son Sontse on her again. Her dedication to conservation is unwavering and touching as she declares, ”If I can save only one snow leopard, it’s value it.” Tenzin additionally proves a fancy character with simply sufficient spine to withstand the stress she is underneath. All through her apprenticeship, she grows in confidence.

The connection between the 2 girls is on the coronary heart of the documentary, however administrators Sonam Choekyi Lama (a Dolpo native), Nepal-based journalist Ben Ayers and London-based filmmaker Andrew Lynch place that inside the context of the broader communities round them, and the affect of non secular figures, elders and herders. The result’s a profitable combination of awe-inspiring pure magnificence and perception right into a era of girls advancing the reason for change.