Event

Dreaming Lhasa (2nd)

In the West, Tibet is often thought of as almost an abstraction, a distant place of mystery and mysticism. It's easy to forget that the Dalai Lama's homeland is a real country full of real people with real lives. Co-produced by America's most famous Buddhist, Richard Gere, Dreaming Lhasa brings the Tibetan experience closer to home. Tibetan-American filmmaker Karma journeys from New York to the land of her ancestors hoping to document the struggles of political prisoners. In the course of her interviews, she encounters an activist monk serving a long prison sentence. When he charges her with the delivery of a sacred box to a fellow exile, Karma must strike out in an exotic country that is more familiar than she imagined. As she journeys through nightclubs and city scenes with the lush Himalayan foothills as a backdrop, her faith, politics and personal identity are all called into question.