Directed by Ed Bastian

76 min / 2024 / USA

In 1981, a Buddhist monk teaching at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, made the bold request of the Dalai Lama to come and perform a rare ritual, never before done outside of India or Tibet: the Kalachakra, among the highest of the Buddhist tantric teachings. In just a few months, with a team of dedicated students, and cameras rolling, they constructed a temple and organized an event for over a thousand spiritual seekers, in a cornfield outside Madison.

The incredible footage was tucked away in the Smithsonian vaults, until now. What unfolds is the story of a powerful ritual, its impact on the people that made it happen, and the meaning behind this ancient initiation.

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Directed by Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff

94 min / 2019 / USA

Around the world, one of the most recognized leaders on our planet today is The Dalai Lama. Everyone knows him as a man of peace, a great Buddhist teacher, an advocate for humanity. The Dalai Lama: Scientist tells the story of the man you do not know; the Dalai Lama that very few people have seen. For the past thirty-five years, The Dalai Lama has been engaged in an ongoing series of dialogues with groups of Scientists. Organized in part by the Mind & Life Institute, they have covered subjects ranging from quantum physics and cosmology to compassion and destructive emotions. The Dalai Lama: Scientist immerses the viewer into these profound dialogues; explores the correlations between science and Buddhism; and shares personal life experiences from The Dalai Lama that have had a deep impact on his development as a truly one-of-a-kind world leader. As The Dalai Lama says, “while Scientific findings offer a deeper understanding of such fields of knowledge as cosmology, it seems that Buddhist explanations can sometimes give Scientists a new way to look into their own field of study.”

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Directed by Samina Mishra

51 min / 2021 / India

Happiness Class explores the world of children in Delhi government schools that introduced an experimental happiness curriculum. Using a range of simple and universal art exercises, the film engages in intimate conversations with children; and together with playful animation sketches the possibilities and challenges of ‘happiness’ being part of curriculum.In a world challenged by competition, conflicts and polarization, the film asks what the pursuit of happiness really means, and what role education can play.

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Directed by Tenzin Sedon

98 min / 2016 / Tibet

“The documentary A Road of Prayer, which I filmed from 2014 to 2016, was about my return to my hometown of Lhasa, Tibet after a long absence. I used a camera to touch my homeland and people that are both familiar and unfamiliar to me. In the film, three narratives are joined by place, time, and urban change, by filming ordinary people on the prayer road (Kora), I embarked on a journey to reconnect with my hometown.” — Tenzin Sedon

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Directed by Jakrawal Nilthamrong

100 min / 2015 / Thailand, Netherlands

Vanishing Point takes on the experience from a car accident of the director’s parents 32 years ago. It’s a story of two men who are each running away from their own suffering, at different times and places. One is a young, idealistic journalist who cannot stand injustice, and the other is a middle-aged man who turns away from his past and goes on living a meaningless life as a motel owner. They eventually learn that no matter how far and long they go, the suffering in their minds have never gone away—until their lives reach the unexpected end.

Directed by Stenzin Tankong

15 min / 2023 / India, France

When the village outcast starts to hear strange sounds in the mountains, everyone except his little brother writes it off as another eccentric performance. He must focus now on finding a wife to redeem himself and secure his place in the social hierarchy, but the sounds keep growing louder and louder.

Directed by Dechen Roder

20 min / 2015 / Bhutan

The traditional ‘3 Year 3 Month Retreat’ or ‘Lo Sum Choe Sum’ is practiced by Buddhist monks, nuns, and other devout practitioners. 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days is calculated as the time needed to achieve a higher state of clarity and motivation. By cutting oneself off from the world, and delving into the inner mind, the retreat is supposed to transform the practitioner. Can Lhamo, a young, wounded girl facing the harsh gaze of the world, find her own form of retreat and redemption?

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Directed by Felipe Esparza Pérez

16 min / 2020 / China, France

Philosopher Zhuangzi once dreamt he was a butterfly. This pleasant daydream tells this old story from a new perspective. Modern butterflies apparently dream in VR. Nature, technology, and spirituality seamlessly meld when a monk and a child both embrace modern technology their own way.

Directed by Manoj Kumar Pant

9 min / 2023 / Nepal

An impoverished couple crosses the Himalaya on foot to a relatively more prosperous village for work, but the only job left is to collect leaves and chop the wood at a clump of poplar trees, in return for food and shelter. The arrangement takes an unexpected turn when the landowner’s son develops an interest in the migrant woman.

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Directed by Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin

33 min / 1997 / UK, India

A Stranger in My Native Land is the poignant and personal account of Tenzing Sonam’s first-ever visit to his homeland, from the far reaches of Amdo Province, where Tibetans have lost their language, to Lhasa, the heart of the country.

Dr. Ed Bastian holds a PhD in Buddhist Studies and lived for years in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in India. Classically trained by renowned teachers, he translated Buddhist texts from Tibetan and Sanskrit and produced several films on Tibetan Buddhism. A former program director and teacher of Buddhism and world religions for the Smithsonian Institution, Fulbright Fellow, internet entrepreneur, environmentalist, and adjunct professor at Antioch University, Ed has taught at leading centers throughout the United States and Canada.

Ed is an award-winning author of Living Fully Dying Well, InterSpiritual Meditation, Creating Your Spiritual Path, and publisher of Meditations for InterSpiritual Wisdom, and has produced acclaimed documentaries on religion for the BBC and PBS. Ed is founder of the Spiritual Paths Foundation and has worked closely with over thirty Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Taoist, and Native American contemplative teachers.

José Ignacio Cabezón is Dalai Lama Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor of Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is also President Emeritus of the American Academy of Religion, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published almost twenty books and dozens of articles on various aspects of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies. His most recent books include Sera Monastery (with Penpa Dorjee) and Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism, both published by Wisdom Publications.

Roger Jackson is professor emeritus of Asian studies and religion at Carleton College. His most recent books are Saraha: Poet of Blissful Awareness and Rebirth: A Guide to Mind, Karma, and Cosmos in the Buddhist World.

Vesna A. Wallace is a Distinguished Professor of South Asian and Inner Asian Buddhist Traditions in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on Indian Buddhism, Mongolian Buddhism, and advanced Sanskrit. She has authored over 90 publications, including eight books and numerous articles and book chapters on diverse aspects of Indian and Mongolian Buddhist traditions. She is also an Affiliate Faculty in Translation Studies Program and in Medical Humanities and Disabilities Program at UCSB. She serves on many international editorial and advisory boards and is currently the Executive Director of Mongolia Foundation in the U.S. Since 2000, she has worked on the promotion and development of Buddhism in Mongolia for which she received a friendship medal from the President of Mongolia.