We invite you to join us for the third annual virtual Tricycle Film Festival from June 16–30, 2026, offering five feature-length films and five short films from across the Buddhist world that you can watch all festival long.
We are pleased to co-present this year’s festival with Pure Land Foundation.
Tickets are $40 for general admission and $30 for subscribers—Get your ticket below!
FEATURE FILMS
“This year’s program brings together intimate and deeply human stories that explore fractured identities, displacement, spiritual inheritance, and cultural responsibility. The filmmakers and the stories they tell invite us into journeys of self-discovery, tradition, and transformation while celebrating storytelling as a living archive of Buddhist thought and philosophy.”
–Shrihari Sathe, Festival Curator
A Little Wisdom
Directed by Yuqi Kang
92 minutes / 2017 / Canada, Nepal, China
Five-year-old Hopakuli is lazy, cheeky, and forever disobeying his elders. He is one of the young, orphaned monks living in the isolated Tibetan monastery of Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha. As Hopakuli and his brother Chorten learn to endure the rigours of monastic life with their fellow orphans, they find escape in the power of their imaginations, the rough and tumble of their boyhood a constant challenge to the regimented religious environment they call home. Beautifully crafted, this stylish documentary is an intimate immersion into the universal truths of youth.
Angry Monk
Directed by Luc Schaedler
97 minutes / 2005 / Switzerland
Tibet, the mysterious roof of the world, is the seat of enlightened monks–only one of them is against it. Gendun Choephel is the name of the pugnacious monk who turned his back on monastic life in 1934 and set out for the modern age. He is a rebel who heats up the minds of the Tibetan authorities, a reincarnated lama who also loves women and alcohol, and a free spirit who is far ahead of his time and today has become a beacon of hope for a free Tibet. Angry Monk takes the life story of this unorthodox monk as an opportunity to uncover an image of Tibet that runs counter to common clichés.
Dreaming Lhasa
Directed by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
90 minutes / 2005 / India, UK
Karma, a Tibetan filmmaker from New York, comes to Dharamsala—a small town in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, home to the exiled Dalai Lama and the spiritual and political focus of the Tibetan diaspora. Escaping from a deteriorating relationship back home, she is here to make a film about former political prisoners who have escaped from Tibet. Their harrowing stories of courage and suffering heighten her own sense of cultural alienation. Dreaming Lhasa is a journey into Tibet’s fractured past and a voyage of self-discovery.
I, The Song
Directed by Dechen Roder
112 minutes / 2024 / Bhutan, France, Norway, Italy
To save her job and reputation, a school teacher travels to the south of Bhutan in search of her doppelganger, but as she becomes entangled in her lookalike’s life, she realizes she might be the only one to solve her doppelganger’s disappearance as well as recover a “stolen” sacred song. I, The Song is a film about exploitation, music, identity, love, and a culture balanced precariously on the threshold of a reckless digital age.
My Reincarnation
Directed by Jennifer Fox
90 minutes / 2011 / the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Finland
Filmed over twenty years by acclaimed filmmaker Jennifer Fox, My Reincarnation chronicles the lives of the high Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu and his western-born son, Yeshi. The film follows Namkhai Norbu’s rise to greatness as a Buddhist master in the West. Meanwhile his son, Yeshi, recognized at birth as the incarnation of a famous spiritual teacher, breaks away from his father’s tradition and embraces the modern world. Can the father convince his son to keep the family’s threatened spiritual legacy alive? Never before has a high Tibetan Master allowed such complete access to his private life; it is doubtful that another ever will. With her signature behind-the-scenes view of both family and icons, including the Dalai Lama, Fox expertly distills a decades-long drama into a universal story about love, adaptation, renewal, and destiny.
SHORT FILMS
Butterfly Bhutan
Directed by Sonam Yangzom
30 mins / 2024 / Bhutan
Butterfly Bhutan tells the story of a man’s quiet yet determined struggle to correct a deeply rooted custom that has drifted away from its true purpose. Sonam Phuntsho begins each day with morning prayers before heading to the forest in Bhutan’s capital, where he lovingly cares for the trees. But recently, he noticed that the prayer flags, traditionally hoisted with good intentions, were strangling the trees and slowly killing them. Determined to save the trees, he began removing the flags. Despite facing criticism and warnings of divine retribution, Sonam continues to remove the prayer flags and educate people about the harm their actions cause. His unwavering dedication creates ripples, much like a butterfly’s wings triggering a hurricane across the globe. His story shows the profound impact one person’s passion can have in driving positive change.
Family Man
Directed by Kalani Gacon
17 minutes / 2024 / Nepal, Australia
During a storm in a remote Nepalese village, a mysterious man finds refuge in the house of a family haunted by their father’s disappearance years before. Strangely unwilling to leave, he slowly reawakens lost memories of the missing father.
hiraeth
Directed by Kunga Choephel
14 minutes / 2024 / USA
Hiraeth is a deeply personal short documentary following Kunga Chophel returning to his hometown in India after eight years in the U.S., only to find that the place he once knew is no longer as he remembered. The title, “Hiraeth,” originates from a Welsh word describing a deep, nostalgic longing for a time or place that no longer exists. The film offers an intimate exploration of the immigrant experience.
Lobsang on Camera
Directed by Migmar Jannot
14 minutes / 2025 /France
Lobsang, a little monk, becomes a filmmaker’s subject during her visit to her uncle in Drepung Monastery in the south of France.
Yarne
Directed by Andrew Krakower
20 minutes / 2020 / Nepal
Sonam and Tashi, two 11-year-old monks, earn just enough from prayers to share a single Coke, though the monastery bully, Tashi, usually drinks it all. During Yarne, a six-week period of confinement, Sonam decides to save his money for a soccer ball—but first he must stand up to Tashi.
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