2023 Tibetan Film Festival

Welcome to the 2023 Tibetan Film Fest, presented by the Arizona Friends of Tibet!

The Arizona Friends of Tibet proudly shares a collection of four extraordinary films, each a window into the tapestry of Tibetan life. In this captivating journey, we explore not only the rich heritage and traditions of this remarkable community but also the challenges that have shaped their path.

A poignant feature-length film and a thought-provoking short await you at each screening, carefully chosen to illuminate the depth of emotions and stories that define a culture.

Short: Some Questions on the Nature of Your Existence

A single-channel video installation, which explores the rarefied world of Tibetan Buddhist debate. Built around three sets of debates dealing with the basic Buddhist concepts of impermanence, lack of self-existence, and dependent-arising, the piece allows the viewer an opportunity to participate in this unique dialectical practice while highlighting its relevance to the modern world. (Dir. by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, 2007, India, 26 mins., NR)

Feature-length Film: Tukdam: Between Worlds

This feature documentary explores a phenomenon that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call ‘tukdam’, advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled manner. Though dead according to our biomedical standards, they often stay sitting upright in meditation; remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death. Following ground-breaking scientific research into tukdam and taking us into intimate death stories of Tibetan meditators, the film juxtaposes scientific and Tibetan perspectives as it tries to unravel the mystery of tukdam. (Dir. by Donagh Coleman, 2022, Nepal, 91 mins., NR)

This is a rental of The Loft Cinema, presented by Arizona Friends of Tibet.