Trama

Ala Changso is the transliteration of a Tibetan folk song's title meaning please drink up this cup of good wine. It tells the story of a woman who conceals her illness and the secret between her and her ex-husband and decides to go on a pilgrimage to Lhasa. The long pilgrimage reveals her inner secrets one by one. These secrets include entanglements and perplexities of love, morality, responsibility and belief between her and her ex-husband and between her and her second husband.

When young Tibetan farmer Drolma (a radiant Nyima Sungsung) receives news she's seriously ill, she decides to go on a pilgrimage to Lhasa. For her, this means a grueling, year-long walk over Tibetan mountain roads, during which she must prostrate herself every three steps. Drolma's gruff, loving husband Dorje (well-known singer/actor Yungdrung Gyal) hesitates but can't say no to her. Before she leaves, she visits the home of her parents, who have been raising her severely uncommunicative, now 10-year-old son Norbu (a mesmerizing Sechok Gyal). Drolma sets of with two female friends who, faced with miserable weather (it's cold and raining) and the rigors of carrying her equipment and sleeping outdoors, end up abandoning her part way. But Dorje brings Norbu to join her on the road, and the family has an opportunity to relearn and build anew their emotional relationships. Secret intimate sadness and unexpected connections emerge, gently infusing this profoundly beautiful, deceptively simple family road movie and transforming it into a delicate psychological and spiritual journey.