Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Dec. 3: The investigative documentary “Inside China: Battle for Tibet,” produced by ITV in collaboration with PBS FRONTLINE, has won the Foreign Press Association (FPA) Media Awards 2025 in the Arts and Culture Story of the Year category.
The film prominently features Namkyi, a former Tibetan political prisoner who escaped to India in 2023 and shares her first-hand account of repression in Tibet, as well as Dr. Gyal Lo, a Tibetan educational sociologist turned activist and leading expert on China’s assimilation and education policies who exposes the widespread use of colonial-style boarding schools designed to indoctrinate and forcibly assimilate Tibetan children into Han Chinese culture.
Directed and produced by Gesbeen Mohammad, a BAFTA- and Emmy-winning journalist and filmmaker, the documentary explores China’s increasing control over Tibet. In her acceptance speech, Mohammad reflected on the immense challenges of making the film, citing the risks of filming in one of the world’s most heavily surveilled regions and the growing threat of China’s transnational repression.
The documentary investigates the far-reaching impacts of Beijing’s policies on Tibetan culture, language, and religion, examining the boarding school system, pervasive surveillance, and restrictions on daily life. It also explores one of the most consequential issues for Tibet’s future, the succession of the Dalai Lama, who turned 90 this July.
Drawing on undercover footage, expert interviews, Chinese government statements, and testimonies from recent Tibetan escapees like Namkyi, the film offers a rare look inside a region largely closed off to the outside world.
In an earlier conversation with FRONTLINE’s editor-in-chief and executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath, Mohammad emphasized the urgency of documenting Tibet. “Tibet is one of the world’s most tightly guarded regions… It felt important to examine, particularly as there are growing allegations that some policies are infringing on Tibetans’ religion and unique culture,” she stated.
Hardcash Productions, the documentary’s production company, described the film as a groundbreaking exposé, “For the first time in nearly 20 years, documentary cameras go undercover inside Tibet to investigate China’s growing control over its population. The film investigates the mystery of a missing boy, the 11th Panchen Lama, abducted by Beijing 30 years ago, whose role now holds the key to the Dalai Lama’s successor and to Tibet’s future. At stake is the unique culture of some seven million Tibetans as evidence grows that it faces being wiped away under Chinese rule. The film tells the definitive story of the Dalai Lama’s succession and reveals the restrictions Tibetans face daily under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rule.”
