To a Hidden Land

A young film student follows in the footsteps of her intrepid late father to shoot her first documentary about a trip to a glacier in far-flung Tibet, Xu Fan reports.

When Rao Zijun was recruited to direct the documentary Hidden Land in Northern Tibet, she was still a fourth-grade student majoring in movie and television editing at Beijing's Central Academy of Drama.

Alongside the other 47 crew members, Rao, who was then just 21 years old, trekked nearly 3,500 kilometers deep into the no man's land of Tibet autonomous region's Qiangtang, China's largest nature reserve, in December 2016. With its lakes, deserts and glaciers, the area is a haven for some rare species, such as the Tibetan antelope, the wild yak and the Tibetan brown bear.