Kunga Choephel ’23

Kunga Choephel ’23 is a Tibetan director, cinematographer, and photographer raised in India and based out of Queens, New York.

Proud son of an immigrant taxi driver, his directing and photography work carries strong undercurrents of class, identity, and family.

As a DP he is interested in intimate character studies and approaches the process with a collaborative spirit across every department.

Choephel is a co-founder and member of Are We There Yet?, a worker owned film and video production company.

He has worked with brands and NGO’s like Mellon Foundation, Children’s Aid, META, Ray Bans, Pinterest, FADER, Topicals, Adolescent Content, etc. He has been a teaching artist at institutions like Maysles Documentary Center, Greenwich Country Day School, and here at Purchase.

As a senior here, Choephel he was awarded the Chair’s Award for Outstanding Filmmaker and The Jesse Feigelman Film Award.His film “This is closest to how the last of March weeks felt like” is a personal account of the Covid-19 pandemic in America and its effects on an immigrant family as seen through the eyes of a student quarantined at his barren university.

The film screened at Short of the Week, National Film Festival for Talented Youth, and Tide Film Festival.He is a recipient of the Storyline Apprenticeship and Manhattan Film Institute scholarship.

—Excerpted from kungachoephel.com