Film Club

Buddhist films and discussion for the Tricycle community

2024 Archive

Khata: Purity or Poison?

Dr. Huatse Gyal

What happens when a sacred object, like the Khata, becomes ubiquitous? Today, the most common raw material for the Khata is a synthetic chemical fiber called polyester. Due to the widespread use of Khata in everyday common practices, discarded Khata can be found in rivers and lakes all across the larger Himalayan world. Many animals die from eating them, especially during the winter when grass become scarce. Fish and birds often get caught and die in the threads of the Khata. This ethnographic documentary film explores the paradoxical relationship between the meaning of Khata and its materiality, between purity and poison, with the aim of raising awareness of the unintended consequences of our good intentions.

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Gyütö

Filipa Cardoso

To hear the sound of the ocean in the Himalayas… This unlikely wish takes a film director and her three girls to Gyütö, where a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, perched high, echoes day and night the sound of sacred tantric chants of meditation, which sound like the waves of the ocean. Wandering freely about wherever their curiosity leads them, they discover the daily life of 400 monks living there. Over time, a dialogue develops and a growing complicity emerges. From this intimate immersion, a film takes form, unfolding like a wave both visually and in sound. The reality of Buddhism is revealed in a way that is unprecedented, in the spontaneity of the questions asked, as well as with the sensitive understanding of a child’s point of view and with no proselytization at all.

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Not One and Not Two

SEO BoHyung

Not One and Not Two follows the intersecting stories of Young-mok, a Zen practitioner ill with an unknown disease, and his artist girlfriend, Seon-hwa. Oscillating between two narratives, the film poses the question: while individuals are not the same, are they not so different, either?

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My Buddha Is Punk

Andreas Hartmann

Twenty-five-year-old Burmese punk musician Kyaw Kyaw is on a mission. He and his band, The Rebel Riot, travel Myanmar playing music and organizing demonstrations to raise awareness about the persecution of the country’s ethnic minorities. The band’s unique blend of ideals—one part Buddhist compassion, two parts punk rock rebellion—fuels their quest for equality and freedom for all in contemporary Myanmar.

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Review

Maso Chen

Review documentary

This documentary follows three people with terminal illness and their reflections on life and spiritual explorations before death.

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