This documentary was shot secretly inside Tibet between 1996 and 2004, without the knowledge of Chinese authorities.
For humanitarian reasons and to help protect the Tibetans who courageously participated in the film, the Directors insisted that security measures be part of the distribution plan. The National Film Board of Canada (NFB), international distributor of the film, initially agreed with this plan.
In August 2008, at the urging of some of the film's participants and members of the Tibetan Diaspora, the filmmakers have decided to make the film available to the widest possible audience, on the eve of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Two days before its DVD release, it has been shown on the Canadian French language CBC television network as a world TV premiere.
Worldwide, each moviegoer attending a screening was to be searched by security guards before entering the theater, in order to prevent anyone with any type of camera to take pictures of the faces appearing in the film. The release of such portraits could endanger the life of the Tibetans because the Chinese government might consider the participants as political troublemakers, and eventually put them in jail, torture or even kill them.