This paper performs a case study on the film Secret Tibet (Geheimnis Tibet, 1943). The footage was filmed during the German expedition to Tibet in 1938–1939, and the first version was released on German screens in 1943. However, in 1945, the Soviet troops transported the film as part of the Reichsfilmarchiv in the USSR, made significant changes, and re‑issued it as a Soviet documentary. The distributional history of Secret Tibet provides a fruitful platform for juxtaposing the film cultures and cultural policies of both states. Applying a comparative
approach to the goals, features, and historical contexts of the film releases in both cases, it is possible to reveal German and then Soviet imagination on Tibet