Start your day with a fresh perspective
Buddhist films and discussion for the Tricycle Community
Film Club Archive
Join Japanese American director Renee Tajima-Peña on her road trip exploring the Asian American cultural landscape at the end of the 20th century. Tackling the topics of racial politics, xenophobia, and immigration with curiosity and irreverence, Tajima-Peña tries to answer the question “What does it mean to be Asian American?”
How hard could it be to start a new Buddhist temple? Quite hard indeed, the Chinese businessman Mr. Hu discovers during this documentary, as unforeseen tensions with the sponsoring monastery in China threaten his dream of founding a temple in the Netherlands.
Soto Zen monks Chiken and Ryugyo, two classmates, grapple with the trauma of Japan’s post-Fukushima socio-economic crisis while trying to lead their respective temples. Tenzo freely blends fact and fiction in a genre-bending experimental tale based on real Soto Zen monks.
For decades, Tibetan Buddhist nuns and their allies fought for the right to receive their religious tradition’s highest academic honor, the geshe degree (called geshema for women). The Geshema is Born follows the inspiring story of Namdol Phuntsok, an exceptional young nun, as she earns top honors and becomes one of the first of a new class of esteemed women scholars.
“The really wonderful thing that happened to me when I was in space,” says astronaut Mae Jemison in Planetary, “was this feeling of belonging to the entire universe.” Through stunning footage and wide-ranging interviews, this documentary delivers one central message: Everything on our fragile planet is interconnected.
“Compassion in action” is the philosophy of Karuna-Shechen, a Buddhist nonprofit cofounded by monks Matthieu Ricard and Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche. Karuna tells the uplifting stories of the women in India and Nepal empowered by the organization’s education and job training.
