SXSW FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! Everyone has a story that is uniquely theirs. Many struggle to find the medium in which it is best to tell it. It is fortunate then that directors Martin Brauen and Yangzom Brauen chose the documentary format to capture the intriguing, heart-warming, and deeply moving tale of Kunsang Wangmo, known affectionately as Mola, in Mola – A Tibetan Tale of Love and Loss. Wangmo’s journey began in the late 1950s when she was, like many of her nation’s religious order, exiled from their home in the wake of Chinese occupation. She fled with her children to India via dangerous roads, only to arrive in Switzerland when her remaining daughter married Martin Brauen, a Swiss anthropology student.
Jump ahead 45 years, and Mola continues to be as spritely as she is devout, adhering to daily prayer rituals and going up and down flights of stairs, all with a smile on her face as she approaches her 100th birthday. But there is the lingering call of home, and it is Mola’s last wish to pass into the next life in the land of her birth. Thus, she is forced to exercise her Buddhist tolerance and patience as Martin is frantically communicating with the local embassy to hopefully secure a visa from the Chinese government to allow the old lady to come home.
It’s a backwards-forwards rigmarole, which becomes frustrating and flustering. Yet this woman, out of time, remains steadfast, hopeful and optimistic. Aided and motivated by her selfless daughter Sonam, a painter in her private time, Mola finds constant stimulus and frequent joy as the path ahead becomes finite. The ancient lady even seeks and receives a blessing from his holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama.
“…it is Mola’s last wish to pass into the next life in the land of her birth.”
Despite the ebb and flow of the uncertainty and impermanence of all things, Mola continues with her laughter, prayer, and insight as she delivers glimpses of her extraordinary existence, which comes to her mostly now in dreams. At the last, she receives word that a visa has finally been granted, triggering a mass of preparations in multiple countries and involving many friends and relatives to see that this fascinating character and charismatic woman returns to where it all began, in the religious paradise of Tibet.
Mola – A Tibetan Tale of Love and Loss is a tremendous achievement in documentary storytelling. Showing the glory and fragility of life, but also such glorious improvised moments that track the final days of a person who has lived longer than most will ever. But Mola is not defined by her age or her past. She is a character of immense yet quiet wisdom, child-like playfulness, and charming moments of quiet joy and reflection. She has walked our Earth bravely and compassionately, ever thinking of others before herself. It seems only fitting then that her final wish is realized on the path to the end of her journey on the wheel of time, but only the beginning as she enters a path unseen, the road to enlightenment.
Mola – A Tibetan Tale of Love and Loss screened at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival.
"…a tremendous achievement..."
