A small film could not have a bigger philosophical question: what is more important, inner development or outward social action? In a nunnery in the high desert mountains of Nepalese Mustang, a revered abbess dies, leaving signs that she will be reborn in the precious human form once more. Prayers and ritual must be done to help her consciousness into its next rebirth, but the nunnery coffers are empty.
Dolkar is a 25-year-old Tibetan woman living in Delhi. 15 years ago, she escaped from Tibet with her father, making a perilous trek across the Himalayas. Since then she has suppressed all recollection of that traumatic journey. But when Dolkar unexpectedly encounters Gompo, the guide who led them from Tibet only to abandon them before they crossed the final pass to freedom, memories of her escape are reignited and she is propelled on an obsessive search for reconciliation and closure.
In the tradition of the Tibetan religion Bon, a lama’s son inherits his title. In Lubra village in Lower Mustang in northern Nepal, where a large population of Bon followers reside, an aging lama awaits his son’s return from the US—and fears the extinction of his culture. In a fast-globalizing world that demands assimilation, a community struggles to hold on to its distinctive customs. Simultaneously, a filmmaker observes the decline of traditions that defined his formative years.
Festival of Tibetan Films and Films about Tibet FLIM Prague