What Is A Buddhist Film

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What is a ‘Buddhist Film?’

John Whalen-Bridge
Published online: 31 Mar 2014.
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To cite this article: John Whalen-Bridge (2014) What is a ‘Buddhist Film?’,

Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 15:1, 44-80, DOI:
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WHAT IS A ‘BUDDHIST FILM?’
John Whalen-Bridge
Films such as Kundun and Little Buddha are obvious choices to fit the category
“Buddhist films,” but critical studies and Buddhist film festivals have in the last decade
widened the discussion to include films like The Matrix (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001),
raising the question, “What is a Buddhist film?” One way to answer this question is to
consider the criteria for selecting films for international Buddhist film festivals. These
events include films that directly represent Buddhist characters, rites, beliefs, and
material objects, but in addition to overtly Buddhist representations there are regular
inclusions of “covertly” Buddhist films. In addition to overt and less direct thematic
treatments, the category "Buddhist film" has come to include “draftees”—films that were
never intended to express a Buddhist theme but are felt by event organizers to have
Buddhist implications even when there is no evidence of Buddhist intention. The practice
of interpreting a non-Buddhist film in a Buddhist manner makes Buddhism appear less
strange to Western audiences. Buddhist film festivals are thus part of a larger process
through which Buddhism adapts and indigenizes itself i"n countries outside of Asia.
It seems that once we start looking for Buddha, he’s everywhere.

(Gaetano Kazuo Maida, “A Buddhist Cinema” 2009)
Films have represented Buddha continuously, from Franz Osten and Himansu Rai’s
Light of Asia in 1925 through to the present.1 While images of Buddha and
representations of Buddhist practices appeared sporadically in European and
American cinema before World War II, cinematic representation of Buddhism
increased dramatically after the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in
1989.2 The decade that followed could be described as a cinematic Buddha Boom.
Major releases such as Little Buddha (1994), Kundun (1997), and Seven Years in Tibet
(1997) softened the market for the dozens of documentary films that appeared since
the 1990s. The Nobel Committee’s canonization of the Dalai Lama as a world celebrity
of the first rank may have kick-started the Buddha Boom, but the worldwide practice of
organizing Buddhist film festivals, spear-headed by the Buddhist Film Foundation
(USA), has made ‘Buddhist film’ a household phrase.We must consider the ‘Buddhist
film’ in relation to film festival screenings partly because no one really knows what a
Buddhist film is. Films that come to be associated with Buddhism in many different
ways are put together in the program of a Buddhist film festival, and so we can work
out a spectrum of possible relationships if we look at how they fit into such programs.
Everything shown at a Buddhist film festival is presented as a ‘Buddhist film’ of some
Contemporary Buddhism, 2014

Vol. 15, No. 1, 44–80, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2014.890358
q 2014 Taylor & Francis
WHAT IS A ‘BUDDHIST FILM?’ 45
sort, but these festivals, which started in the West and have spread to Asian countries,
include provocative as well as obvious inclusions to arouse curiosity. There are films
made in Buddhist countries, for Buddhist audiences, and which presume knowledge of
Buddhist history, practices, and beliefs: these films may be too exotic for mainstream
American audiences, but at a Buddhist film festival they are shown alongside other
films that broaden the appeal of the subject. Films about Buddhism that are made in
the West and for Western audiences have to find ways to bring along those with less
awareness of the intricacies of Buddhism. So, there are (a) Asian Buddhist films and
(b) Western films about clearly-marked Buddhist topics or characters, and there are
more ambiguous films that are either (c) Buddhist-influenced or (d) thematically
conducive to Buddhist allegorization. The intention of the maker need not be entirely
clear; so long as the linkages make some general sense and are likely to lead to a more
successful program, a broad set of films might appear in a Buddhist film festival.
The last of these four ways of being a Buddhist film, the ‘typological’, is the
most provocative and potentially the most confusing. Just as Biblical
hermeneutics devised ways to ‘convert’ Old Testament figures and texts so that
they could be understood in logical relation—from the Christian point of view—to
the fundamental authority of the New Testament, so too have a range of film-
viewers (including academic critics, reviewers, film festival selection committees,
and Buddhists with blogs) enjoyed discussing films that do not directly reference
Buddhism as if they were by or about Buddhists. This practice—interpreting a
non-Buddhist film in a Buddhist manner and claiming it as a quasi-Buddhist film of
some sort—makes Buddhism appear less strange within the new (non-Asian)
culture. Just as people are assimilated by the new land, so are cultural expressions.
One way to assimilate is to conform to the new home; another way is to offer
distinctive cultural expressions and ideas in an attractive manner, such that the
alterity of the import is reduced. Differences are presented as stylistic rather than
substantial. Just as we see Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh (1995)
writing books for Western readers that narrow the differences between Buddhism
and Christianity, e.g., Living Buddha, Living Christ, so too do we see the phenomena
of classic American films that do not reference Buddhism—even It’s a Wonderful
Life and 12 Angry Men–showing up in discussions of Buddhist film and in Buddhist
film festivals. The potential for confusion is large.
Looking at the films collected by 25 international film festivals across a period
of eight years from 2003–2011, we see that films that foreground imagery,
characters, and themes associated with Buddhism are often shown alongside films
that are associated with the religion in a more abstract way or which would not be
considered Buddhist outside the context of a Buddhist film festival. These films may
be called ‘draftees’. Festival programs usually include a generous portion of shorter
documentaries about teachers and communities. Dramatic features organized
around historical figures (e.g., the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan saint Milarepa) and
feature documentaries organized around Buddhist concepts (e.g., being trapped in
the bardo between life and death) have also comprised a large part of each
festival’s program.3 The most popular non-Buddhist Buddhist films, if you will, have
46 JOHN WHALEN-BRIDGE
been what I call the bardo films. Many films in this genre foreground themes central
to Buddhism and which are drafted into the growing club of Buddhist films. Films
such as Kundun, Little Buddha, and Seven Years in Tibet are obvious ‘Buddhist films’,
but critical studies and Buddhist film festivals have in the last decade widened the
discussion to include films like The Matrix (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001). Are these
latter films ‘Buddhist’, or have scholarly articles, religiously-themed blogs, and film
festivals included non-Buddhist in ways that confuse festival participants about
what a term like ‘Buddhist movie’ should mean?
1. Representation, intention, and interpretation

Three factors must be taken into account when defining a Buddhist film: (1)
representation, (2) intention, and (3) interpretation. ‘Representation’ simply means
that films portraying Buddhist characters, communities, practices, and visual
markers (such as temples or sand paintings) in a prominent way are likely
candidates. Representation involves not only visual imagery but also sound,
including dialogue, voice-over language, and music from within or outside the
story-world. Ewoks speaking Tibetan in a Star Wars movie or monks chanting at
least raise the possibility that the movie is associated with Buddhism.4 Some
movies never mention Buddhism and yet are organized around plots or themes
that appear, at least to some viewers, to connect with Buddhism in a more-than-
incidental way.
‘Intention’ refers to the viewer’s inference from the cinematic themes or
dialogue that the film is about Buddhism, albeit indirectly. There are also films
that most viewers have never associated with Buddhism but which a given viewer
may interpret in such a way as to produce a Buddhist moral. Several Buddhist
bloggers have interpreted It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) as a Buddhist movie.5 Capra
had previously made Lost Horizon (1937), so it is not impossible that Capra
intended a Buddhist allegory of some sort, but very few non-Buddhist film-goers
would be persuaded that Capra intended a specifically Buddhist reference or
moral. (It would be difficult to explain away Clarence, the angel who wants to
earn his wings.) However, if many viewers begin to discuss a questionable film as
if it were Buddhist, that film becomes more strongly associated with the religion
by virtue of its role as a reference point. Films that become Buddhist in this way
can be termed ‘draftees’. In the absence of direct references, it is not always
possible to say confidently whether the Buddhism is in the film or in the mind of
the interpreter, and it may also behoove directors to obscure overly-direct
expression of sympathy with an identity that comprises such a tiny fraction of the
audience demographic: according the 2007 Pew Foundation survey of American
religions, only 0.7% of the overall population of the United States is Buddhist
(Pew).
These three factors need not all be present at once to consider a film
Buddhist film, but definitions developed solely around direct representation will
run into several problems. First of all, the more overtly Buddhist films have made
important film critics uncomfortable. Roger Ebert gave the visually gorgeous film
Kundun low marks for what Ebert took as a hagiographical treatment of the
subject, the Dalai Lama:
In Kundun, there is rarely the sense that a living, breathing and (dare I say?)
fallible human inhabits the body of the Dalai Lama. Unlike Scorsese’s portrait of
Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), this is not a man striving for
perfection, but perfection in the shape of a man. (Ebert 1998, n.p.)
For Ebert, the director’s artistic choices were too close to the Tibetan Buddhist
practice of guru devotion, in which the adherent strives to see the teacher as the
embodiment of perfection.
Scorsese’s $28,000,000 film earned about $5,500,000 at the box office.
The vernacular term for films that perform in this way is a ‘flop’ or a ‘bomb’.6
Perhaps Scorsese erred in portraying Tibet without exoticizing it enough to
suit the tastes of mainstream audiences. Tibet as a ‘Shangri-La’ fantasy or as
the location for a white person’s adventure or exploration of identity has
worked well, but a film with Tibetan actors that does not include a single
Caucasian face might be more likely to lose $20,000,000. It is also possible
that the film was not marketed properly for political/economic reasons.
According to a May 2011 TIME article, Disney head Michael Orvitz may have
cut a deal with the Chinese government, perhaps including limitations on the
marketing of Scorsese’s film in order to secure the development of a Disney
theme park.7
While it is tempting to arrange a set of Buddhist movies along some sort of
linear spectrum, any decision regarding which films were ‘more Buddhist’ or less
would quickly appear quixotic. Still, it is clear—in the case of Kundun—that the
director knowingly took a risk by creating a film infused with religious sensibility
rather than one that, in a more neutral way, emphasized religious history as its
subject matter. Screenwriter Melissa Mathison (1998, n.p.) said in her interview
with the Buddhist monthly magazine The Shambhala Sun, ‘This was a really
challenging movie to get made, there’s no question about that. There are no big
stars, it all takes place in Tibet, it’s the story of the Dalai Lama, it’s a “religious” film.’
She reports having had no knowledge of Buddhism when she began her
biographical screenplay about the life of the Dalai Lama, a screenplay that found
final form in Scorsese’s Kundun. In the Shambhala Sun interview Mathison also
discusses why she thought Scorsese—also not a Buddhist—seemed a great
director for her story:
He was always the first person on my list. I had met Marty a couple of times.
I grew up a Catholic, he grew up a Catholic. I knew he had actually studied for
the priesthood at one point and I knew that he was really interested in the
spiritual. I didn’t have a clue that he had any interest in Tibet, but I just knew that
whether or not he wanted to make this movie, he would understand what it was
about.
In Mathison’s telling, it was the Dalai Lama’s role as a cinematic presence within
documentary newsreels that created the pre-conditions for Scorsese’s partici-
pation rather than Buddhism apart from its cinematic embodiments:
Marty is, of course, a great movie buff. He loves old documentaries and newsreel
footage and he immediately told me how he remembered as a child seeing this
footage of Tibet, footage of the Dalai Lama escaping, and how he was always
intrigued, as we all are, by Tibet (Mathison 1998, n.p.)
Possibly Mathison’s comment is motivated by a wish to rescue the film from

charges of hagiography. Her comments make it clear that a ‘religious’ film may rub
some the wrong way.

Scholars writing about Buddhist movies need to be more careful about what
such a phrase describes than festival organizers, who certainly improve the overall
experience by including some odd selections that stimulate friendly discussions
about why such-and-so was included. If Finding Nemo (2003) or some other
draftee is included—this film was shown at the 2011 Calgary Buddhist Film
Festival!—discussion might turn toward what it means to consider a non-Buddhist
film ‘buddhistically’.8 Could there be a ‘Buddhist’ school of film interpretation?
A judicious number of odd inclusions can have a beneficial effect, but a cultural
historian interested in the various ways in which Buddhist concepts and stories are
transmitted from Asia to the rest of the world would benefit from a more
circumscriptive definition. Once we work out a more nuanced way of talking
about the relationship between Buddhism and contemporary film in the West, it
will be easier to see patterns in the hundred-or-so films that have been screened at
festivals.
2. Criteria: The International Buddhist Film Festival approach

The organization most active in promoting Buddhist cinema has been the
Buddhist Film Foundation (BFF), which has helped coordinate more than 10
international film festivals in less than a decade. The BFF, founded in 2000,
organized the first International Buddhist Film Festival (IBFF) in Los Angeles in
2003. Many of the films from this first festival have become perennial film festival
favorites.9 The next IBFF events were in San Francisco (2005), a smaller event in
Washington, DC at the Smithsonian (2004), an international event in Amsterdam
(2006) and one in Singapore (2007), and then in Mexico and San Francisco (2008).
The most impressive IBFF event, the 2009 Buddhist arts festival at the Barbican in
London, included 53 films. In 2010 festivals were held in both the San Francisco
Bay Area and in Washington, DC, and European partners have hosted festivals in
Europe annually from 2007 onward.
IBFF events present films representing various schools of Buddhism and
help distribute and publicize films from many countries in North and South
America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. What do the BFF committee members think a
Buddhist film is? The mission, as formulated in event programs and on the IBFF
Facebook page, is to ‘utilize the powerful medium of motion pictures to foster

knowledge and appreciation of core Buddhist principles: the practice of
compassion, and respect for impermanence and the interdependent web of
connectivity of our world.’10 ‘We are’, Maida writes, ‘very mindful that Buddha
himself wasn’t a “Buddhist,” and we’re not trying to convert anyone’ (Maida,
personal communication, email, October 8, 2011). This approach to inviting new
adherents is in line with the practices of world-famous teachers such as the Dalai
Lama, who urges the people who attend his teachings in crowded convention
halls to not change religions, though he certainly recommends aspects of
Buddhism as conducive to happiness. The mission statement disavows any wish to
convert non-Buddhists via popular culture, but the intention to ‘foster knowledge
and appreciation’ may be considered the soft-power approach to evangelization.
Motivations will vary, but some festival organizers clearly wish to propagate
Buddhism through the arrangement of film festivals. Most festivals also arrange for
one or more public talks. The IBFF festivals balance filmmakers and Buddhist
teachers, and some programs tend to include proponents of Buddhism more than
filmmakers or scholars.
The expanded version of the mission statement emphasizes activities that
might be of greater interest to filmmakers, cinema lovers and scholars than to a
Buddhist sympathizer:
The BFF mission has four components:
exhibition of film and video works—to use cinema to foster communication
about Buddhist ideas to the widest possible cross section of society;
education—to provide a comprehensive, accessible resource for teachers,
filmmakers, funders and diverse audiences;
production—to promote and facilitate quality independent filmmaking in
this arena;
preservation—to serve as an accessible repository of films.
(IBFF Facebook)
In an interview, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox, whose biographical

treatment of Namkhai Norbu and his son Yeshi in My Reincarnation (2010) has won
numerous awards, mentioned that she is careful about screening her film too
often at Buddhist film festivals rather than general film festivals. It could be
harmful to the overall reception of the film if she were recognized primarily as a
Buddhist with a video camera rather than a serious artist with a developing oeuvre
(Fox 2011). If we take the filmmaker’s situation into account, it is easy to see that
IBFF does not face an either/or tension between supporting Buddhism and
supporting film. The better the job done at promoting the best films through
awards, the more prestige the filmmakers will accrue as artists—the social role
that will ultimately help grow careers. Thus BFF supports (Buddhist and non-
Buddhist) film viewers, teachers who want to explain the religion to (presumably
non-Buddhist) students, professional film artists, and also scholars who require an
archival collection of some very hard-to-find films. The organization’s webpage
self-description also identifies a set of genres to expect, carefully allowing for the
inclusion of films that do not represent Buddhism at all:
The International Buddhist Film Festival (IBFF) is the world’s leading presenter of
Buddhist-themed and Buddhist-inspired cinema. IBFF presents and promotes
films of all kinds: features, documentaries, animation, experimental work,
children’s films and television programs. (IBFF homepage)
‘Buddhist-themed’ designates intention on the part of the makers to include films

in which the meaning of the film can reasonably be understood as Buddhist, but
‘Buddhist-inspired’ cinema is much more open-ended. Perhaps a film like Jacob’s
Ladder (1990), which the writer claims was directly inspired by the Tibetan Book of
the Dead (1994), is what this phrase allows.11 The mystical possibility that the
consciousness of a Vietnam veteran who died on the battlefield is traversing a
realm between this life and the next is fairly well cancelled out by the final frames,
in which a paragraph of non-fictional crawl text explains that an experimental
drug used on veterans caused psychotic episodes. At any rate, ‘inspired’ is quite
open-ended and can be the entry-point for many movies that would not seem to
be very directly connected with Buddhism. The IBFF selections are hardly random,
as we will see when we look more closely at their criteria. The writer of Jacob’s
Ladder has discussed both his time in Buddhist monasteries and the direct
inspiration he received from The Tibetan Book of the Dead.12
The festivals are produced by the Buddhist Film Foundation with the aim of
using modern media as a way to facilitate the exploration of Buddhist ideas and
issues (BFF homepage).13 Following the BFF selection criteria, a Buddhist film can,
as it were, be ‘born’ Buddhist (meaning it was constructed in accordance with a
director or writer’s religious or philosophical intention), or it can be ‘converted’ to
Buddhism after the fact. Interestingly, Buddhist films can be sorted into the
categories ‘Buddhist by birth’ or ‘Buddhist by conversion’.14 According to
Executive Director Gaetano Maida, the festival has been organized to promote
knowledge of Buddhism:
Since people do not read as much as they used to, transformative ideas need to
be offered through the medium of film . . . [which] can open the minds of
people who would never cross the threshold of a Zen meditation hall. (Maida
and Goodman 2002, 19)
It is possible that a Buddhist film festival must, to some degree, appear not to
be about Buddhism, as they are most often organized in countries where Buddhism
is a tiny minority among religions. If we consider a Buddhist film festival to be a form
of adaptive behaviour in which Buddhists cultivate good relations with the
mainstream culture, the inclusion of ‘non-Buddhist Buddhist films’ can be a way to
downplay differences between Buddhist and non-Buddhist experience. Buddhism
comes to the West and needs to fit in, and one way for this to happen would be for
exponents to explain away strangeness and to stress commonalities. Writing in
anticipation of the Singapore IBFF of 2007, Cathleen Falsani initially expresses
irritation with the idea that an art form should have a religious label: ‘I suppose it’s a
reaction against those who would give their creation—be it a manuscript, an
economic strategy, or, say, a political ideology—a religious designation as some
kind of divine imprimatur’. Religious assignation made the writer feel ‘leery’, but the
definitional uncertainty of Buddhist film, on the other hand, was interesting:
Even more intriguing to me than the existence of the festival itself were the films
being screened. The Chinese drama Shower (1999) and the documentaries about
a monk from Bhutan and a San Francisco chef (and Zen priest) are to be shown
alongside episodes of The Simpsons and King of the Hill. It was that last part that
got my attention. (Falsani 2007)
The program captured Falsani’s attention because it mixed films that appeared to
promote or proselytize with cartoons and goofy TV shows. Falsani notes her disdain
for any attempt to gather non-believers into a fold, saying she would typically be
apprehensive of a Christian or Moslem or Buddhist festival out of concern that each
would attempt to evangelize. What she found most charming was the self-
deprecating way in which the Buddhist identity was presented. How to Cook Your
Life (2007) is about a Zen teacher who uses bread-making workshops to explain the
spiritual path: Zen Buddhism may be strange to Westerners, but making bread is
part and parcel of home and hearth. Increasingly, films that never reference
Buddhism have been included in the programs of IBFF events. In the 2009 London
IBFF event, several films were featured that do not reference Buddhism and which
were, before the festival, discussed in relation to Buddhism in particular, though
films like Dead Man (1995) are natural conversation-starters for those interested in
eschatological questions. Arts journalist Mark Brown’s response to the 2009
program registers the same surprise as Falsani. Brown wonders if the star actors who
were scheduled to make appearances at the event
might have been mildly surprised to be invited along, but an Ewan McGregor
psychological thriller, a Johnny Depp psychedelic Western, and one of the more
cultish of recent cult movies, Donnie Darko, are all to be part of the UK’s first
Buddhist film festival.
Popular advocates of Buddhism in the West typically underscore

associations with peacefulness, artistic sophistication, the possibility that
Buddhism is ‘a philosophy instead of a religion’, and a completely tolerant and
inclusive ethos. Some of these generalizations may be verified within specific
historical contexts, but the universal claim that Buddhism is only and always a
religion of peace has undergone recent revision. (See, for example, Jerryson and
Juergensmeyer 2010). The idea that Buddhism is an utterly inclusive religion is
also a piety that requires examination, but the notion is certainly part of the
rhetoric of North American ‘modern Buddhism’. However inclusive festival
organizers may feel, an overly broad approach has the potential to confuse
festival participants. That said, a reasonably full set of festivals—24 in this case—
could underscore trends and allow more precise discussions about which films
tend to be included. ‘Buddhist film’ would exist if these film festivals had never
happened, but the phrase would very likely be used specifically in reference to
Asian cinema. Attention to the overall trends demonstrates that the ‘Buddhist
movie’ has become a much more cosmopolitan mode of cultural expression that
it was, say, before the Dalai Lama was given the Nobel Prize in 1989.
3. Multiple motivation and artistic expression

The clearest formulation of the qualities that distinguish a film for inclusion
in an International Buddhist Film Festival event comes from Maida’s December
2010 interview with journalist Hana Baba. When asked if all the films in a given
festival are made by or about Buddhists, he responded that a film might be neither
made by nor about Buddhism:
We look for either a Buddhist subject, a Buddhist setting, a Buddhist creative—
meaning director or screenwriter, or as we winkingly say, a Buddhist implication.
We’ve shown Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog (1999). We’ve shown Rivers and Tides
(2001) about the artist Andy Goldsworthy. There’re a lot of works that don’t
necessarily reference Buddhism specifically and yet reach the same conclusions
or offer the same perspectives. (Baba 2010, n.p.)
‘Winkingly’ stands out. Maida calls attention to films that might draw mild protests
or quizzical looks: Ghost Dog focuses on the values celebrated in the poetic
collection of Samurai lore entitled Hagakure, which means ‘hidden in the leaves’.
There are many kinds of Buddhism to be sure, but the Jarmusch film is a provocative
inclusion.15
Maida’s four-part description is quite useful, however, for the way in which it
foregrounds the chief difficulty in discussing ‘a Buddhist film’. The four criteria,
taken together, are intentionally loose enough to allow for maximum inclusivity,
but the underlying logic has allowed for balanced programs that judiciously bring
in ‘draftees’ without allowing them to trivialize the notion that a ‘Buddhist film’
exists. It is clear that some Buddhist films are designed to promote Buddhism, but it
should also be clear that some sort of ‘evangelization’ is not the only motivation.
Definitional flexibility is important if the term ‘Buddhist film’ is to mean something
more than a film that attempts to persuade viewers to become Buddhist or to
convey knowledge about meditation or devotion. It is important, when considering
the transitive element in art—the part of the work that we sense is trying to push us
in a certain direction, whether socially, politically, or religiously—to not let that
motive overwhelm other motives, e.g., the wish on the part of writers, actors, and
directors to make a work of art that will hold up well in relation to other impressive
works of art, whether or not they have anything to do with religion.
The possibility of multiple motivations allows us to avoid reductive views.
It is clear that some Buddhist films that get included in Buddhist film festivals are
designed to promote Buddhism, but it should also be clear that some sort of
‘evangelization’ is not the only motivation. Definitional flexibility is important if the
term ‘Buddhist film’ is to mean something more than a film that attempts to
persuade viewers to become Buddhist or to convey knowledge about meditation
or devotion. A multi-motivational approach allows for multiple motivations, or
else the definitional filter will result in data limited to religious propaganda.
George Orwell (2009) discussed this problem in his essay ‘Why I Write’, when he
outlined his four most important motivations, namely ‘pure egotism’, ‘aesthetic
enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’, and ‘political purpose’ (2009, 4 –5). Although
Orwell insisted that political impulse was personally the most important, he also
insisted that ‘writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their
motives there lies a mystery’ (9). To base a selection process on presumed
motivation or on biographical facts (or rumours) about the maker is a highly

questionable approach, but Orwell’s four-fold presentation helps by making it
explicitly clear that multiple motivations must be taken into consideration.
An Aristotelian causal analysis of the sort Orwell performs helps clarify the
category Buddhist films (see Table 1). Like ‘political writing’, religious film suffers in
critical appraisal due to a worry that the religious element is extrinsic to art—recall
Cathleen Falsani’s (2007) hesitation about films in which the religious element was
in the fore rather than background. Orwell’s account of multiple motivations
provides a model for understanding the religious component without allowing it
to overwhelm other aspects. It is productive to compare his motivational analysis
with Maida’s four-part description, which is similar.16
As the schema shows, we may understand a work of art or other kind of
utterance in terms of the author or maker, the formal skills involved in the
expression, the expressive material, and the purpose. Orwell (2009, 4–5) concedes
immediately that all writers, motivated in part by ‘pure egotism’, may just want
attention, but it is clear from his multi-modal account that the desire to be heard is
not mutually exclusive with artistic enthusiasm or political purpose. He also attacks
the false binaristic assumption that an artist is dedicated either to art, or to political
matters outside the text, stressing that his own effort has been to make political
writing into an art form. He distinguishes ‘historical purpose’ and ‘political purpose’,
presenting the former as the attempt to offer a neutral, objective representation of
TABLE 1
Aristotle’s causes
Aristotle’s Example: analysis Orwell’s four motives,
four causes of ‘chair’ from ‘Why I Write’
1. Efficient A carpenter Pure Egotism: author has ‘purely selfish’ motives
2. Formal Carpentry Aesthetic Enthusiasm: author enjoys craft, adding beauty,
non-propositional ornamentation
3. Material Wood, glue, Historical Purpose: art as a ‘mirror’ of the times, record of
screws, etc. how life was
4. Final Example: a chair is Political Purpose: Orwell claims that all artists want to
made to be sat upon ‘push the world in a certain direction’, and that he wants
to push the world towards democratic Socialism
events, whereas ‘political purpose’ is about how the writer feels the world ought to
be rather than how it is. Thus, Orwell’s distinction skilfully avoids the uncritical
assumption held by those biased against political literature in which a writer is
assumed to be neutral or engaged/partial. Basing his divisions on Aristotle’s four
causes, Orwell reports that various distinct motivations co-exist in the same writer.
It is a non-starter, Orwell makes clear, to ask whether a piece of writing is ‘political’—
we should always ask how it relates to political issues.
Maida’s description is similar to the Orwellian/Aristotelian division of causes.
There is a key difference, however. Maida divides the ‘material cause’ into ‘subject’
and ‘setting’, and does not give an aesthetic ‘formal cause’ that corresponds to
Orwell’s. Films that appear at a Buddhist film festival will of course have a larger or
smaller Buddhist component, and, as Maida’s ‘winkingly’ indicates, some films will
appear to some viewers to have a rather tangential relation to the subject.
Rather than rely on an impressionistic spectrum approach in which film
viewers—Buddhists? Film Studies scholars? Festival participants? Randomly
selected moviegoers?—evaluate ‘Buddhistness’ according to widely varying
presuppositions, we can use Maida’s description to organize the ways in which the
films are associated with Buddhism in a quasi-Aristotelian manner. The first
column of the table below presents the four IBFF criteria, the second uses one
film—The Cup (1999)—with all four causes as an example to illustrate the
connection, and the third column contains examples of films that have strong
associations in one or two areas (see Table 2).
Maida (2010, interview with Hana Baba) refers to ‘creatives’, rather than an
‘efficient cause’ or to ‘pure egotism’. The basic idea is similar to the one put
forward by Orwell; namely, that all works of literature and all films have one or
more makers. The important makers for film are the writer(s), the director, and
sometimes the cinematographer.
Considering Maida’s ‘subject’ as a formal cause may be confusing: the
connection is intended to indicate those movies in which Buddhist content forms
the movie as a whole. Maida refers to ‘direct or overtly’ Buddhist content as a
reason to include ‘the many documentaries produced around the world exploring
monastery life, transplanted communities, rituals and ceremonies, important
personages, cross-cultural contacts, social activism, historical events and rare art’
(Maida 2009, 28). ‘Subject’ applies to films such as Kundun as well, but for Maida
emphasis falls on the documentary/drama distinction; ‘subject’ sans ‘creative’ or
‘implication’ would probably narrow the set down mainly to documentaries.
The line between ‘subject’ and ‘setting’ is blurry, but in Maida’s practice it
becomes clearer. In ‘A Buddhist Cinema’ he lumps subject and setting together
when he brings up the issue of ‘appropriation’. Maida writes,
The emergence of dramatic features with clear Buddhist subject matter, themes
or settings, even those that merely appropriate Buddhist iconography or cultural
images (like robed monks, or temples, etc.) to embellish otherwise unrelated
plots.
TABLE 2
Maida’s Causes
All four causes Films with a single
Maida’s four causes in one film: The Cup prominent cause
Efficient Cause: Khyentse Norbu: Ghost (1990) and Jacob’s Ladder:
Creator writer/director written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Sacrifice: Child Prostitutes from
Burma (1998): directed by Ellen Bruno
Formal Cause: Comedy representing Buddha (2010): documentary about

Subject monks; thematic Buddha and contemporary Buddhists
treatment of ‘emptiness’
Material Cause: Set in a monastery in Bir, Burma VJ (2008): documentary

Setting Tibetan settlement area about protests in Myanmar, including
in northern India Buddhist monks
Final Cause: Themes include The Matrix (1999): science fiction film
Implication emptiness, selfless discussed in relation to emptiness
action, religion and
tradition
Maida seems to be referring specifically to mere ornamentation, presumably

at the expense of a strong understanding of the subject. Films that use robes and
gongs to signify the ‘Mysterious East’ but in which the imagery does not connect
with theme or character are somewhat dubious candidates for the descriptor
‘Buddhist film’. Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) is set partly in Tibet, but
Tibetan Buddhism has little if anything to do with the plot. ‘Setting’ can refer to
movies in which Buddhism is merely a backdrop, a flavouring device. It often stands
for exoticism. The Eddie Murphy comedy/adventure Golden Child (1986) involves a
journey to a Buddhist country, but the film is more or less a version of Beverly Hills
Cop (1984) with Vajrayana backdrops.17 Table 2 demonstrates that we need not
have all four causes before discussing a film as ‘Buddhist’, and so the second column
finds all of Maida’s causes in one film (e.g., The Cup (1999)), whereas the third
column selects films that are associated with Buddhism primarily because of one
cause—though it is not easy to separate ‘subject’ and ‘setting’.
The Cup may be the quintessential Buddhist film. The writer/director
Khyentse Norbu (2008) is even more widely known as Dzongsar Jamyang
Khyentse Rinpoche. He is considered to be an important reincarnate lama by his
students. He is also the author of the popular book What Makes You Not a
Buddhist, a witty response to the definitional uncertainties of modern,
transnational Buddhism. He travels the world to give Buddhist teachings and
Vajrayana empowerments—it is safe to say that the creator of The Cup is a Buddhist.
The film is set in Norbu’s monastery in Bir, and the subject matter is incontestably
Buddhist, even though the central gag of the film is that some of the monks are
more passionate about football than about Buddhism. The central tension in the
story, the struggle between young monks and the monastery disciplinarian over
the watching of soccer matches, is also a meditation about the way
Buddhism relates to modernity. The solution to all problems is ‘emptiness’,
which allows for non-attachment to conventional identities, which allows the
seasoned monks to make allowance for a television screening, so long as it leads to
an improvement of Buddhist practice. The film is rich in Buddhist implications, e.g.,
the naughty young monk who is obsessed with the sporting event then switches to
selfless action, and the movie comes to a close by showing monks learning about
compassion.
The movies Ghost and Jacob’s Ladder were both written by Bruce Joel Rubin,
a Buddhist. Both films depend on the notion of an inter-life bardo period. Rubin
won an Oscar for the romantic thriller Ghost, about a murdered man trapped
between his last life and whatever future awaits him, and in Jacob’s Ladder a
Vietnam veteran either experiences phantasmagoric hallucinations or is similarly
trapped in between incarnations.18 Buddhists who discuss the film however, link
the nightmarish experiences to bardo, the period between lives popularized in the
West by The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Ghost has not appeared at an IBFF film
festival, but Jacob’s Ladder was included in the 2003 festival. The People magazine
report on Rubin’s Oscar award makes the biographical connection between the
religion and the ‘creative’:
[I]n 1966, Rubin quit and set off alone on a trip around the world to seek the
wisdom that he says he found in a Buddhist monastery near Kathmandu, and in
India. ‘People come [to Benares] to die by the Ganges,’ he says. ‘You watch their
bodies burning on the dock; you watch the fish eat their remains. It’s something
you don’t see in America—it changes your perspective.’ (“Ghost Writer” 1991)
Few would call the sentimental romance Ghost a ‘Buddhist movie’, but it is often
noted that Jacob’s Ladder is patterned on The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Hollywood has been fascinated for decades with what may be called the ‘bardo
film’, but it is useful to distinguish whether a film uses the idea of an intermediate
stage between one human life and the next incarnation merely as a dramatic
device as opposed to a structuring presupposition about how life may be
ordered. Both Jacob’s Ladder and Sixth Sense (1999) present troubled characters—
ghosts—who are caught between worlds because of unfinished business, but
neither film presents a character returning to another human (or animal, or
divine) incarnation.
Looking at a film in relation to Buddhist creators is a highly uncertain
practice, but it has led to interesting film selections for Buddhist Film Festival
events. Ellen Bruno’s Satya: a Prayer for the Enemy (1995) and Sky Burial (2005)
were included in the 4th IBFF festival (London, 2009) for clear reasons—the former
represents the problem of maintaining Buddhist compassion practices in the
midst of oppression, and the latter is about Tibetan Buddhist death rituals.
Sacrifice: Child Prostitutes from Burma (1998) would by itself be an unusual
inclusion, but it is shown with her two other films, thus extending discussion from
documentary content to artistic form. Any film dealing with compassion or ethics
might be connected to Buddhist notions of compassion or ethics, but comparative
approaches of this sort will be trivial when there is no basis for developing the
enquiry in two directions—leading the viewer to think more about a Buddhist text
or system on one hand, and a given film on the other. Knowing that the filmmaker
or writer has produced a body of work concerned with Buddhist ideas and
subjects allows a more confident discussion of the connections.
Maida’s division between ‘subject’ and ‘setting’ could be used in various
ways. In the table above, the film with Buddhism as a subject, David Grubin’s PBS
documentary Buddha, is a sympathetic account of the subject narrated by the
well-known actor and Tibet-activist Richard Gere. Grubin’s religious beliefs are not
much in evidence in the promotional materials, and the setting varies from
Buddhist India to wherever the various talking heads were interviewed. The
subject—Buddha and his impact on the world—is never in doubt. Burma VJ (2010
Buddhist Film Festival, Washington DC) is another story. This documentary about
the journalists risking their lives to document government crackdowns in
Myanmar shows several sequences of monks protesting, but there is no discussion
of Engaged Buddhism or other ways in which Buddhist values inflect the protests
or the desire to show the truth. The footage is from Myanmar and monks are
shown, but it would appear to be a Buddhist film in a merely incidental way.
Heather Kessinger’s In the Shadow of Buddha (2010) might also have been
included (IBFF, San Rafael, 2010) as a ‘setting’ film. It is a feminist critique of the low
status of Tibetan nuns, an issue of importance to many Buddhists, but the film’s
own web page makes it clear that the film contrasts delusory beauty with the
reality of gender inequity:
The stark and beautiful images of Tibetan Buddhism seem as familiar as they are
exotic, but there is a world more mysterious, beautiful and unknown that is not
often witnessed by the eye of Western enthusiasm. Beneath the icy mountains
and whitewashed monasteries, In the Shadow of Buddha explores the world of
three generations of these remarkable women. But despite the popularity of
the tradition, gender inequality remains embedded in the monastic culture of its
Himalayan homeland. Buddhist nuns practicing in regions of northern India still
inhabit a world infused with bias, prejudice, and even oppression. In the
Shadow of Buddha is a film that seeks to bridge the gap between the exotic and
the familiar—between the issues and challenges of women in a far-off, foreign
countryside and the recognizable struggles we all face in our personal, religious,
and community lives.19
Gender equity rather than spiritual cultivation would seem to be the real subject,
even if one believes that a mindful effort to create gender equity could be a form
of spiritual cultivation.
‘Implication’ is a category that Maida has offered ‘winkingly’, which one
takes to be an acknowledgement of the highly subjective ‘Buddha in the eye of
the beholder’ approach. We can make this category more useful if we distinguish
between two kinds of ‘Buddhist-by-implication’ films. One kind of film would be

Buddhist allegory, and the other is the film that is allegorical rather than an
allegory. The first term is used when a clear intention is recognized and when
there is a one-to-one correspondence between what is in the film and Buddhism.
An ‘allegorical’ film is one in which the interpreter might select a few points of
correspondence in order to make an allegorical meaning that the writer or director
may never have intended.20
In the former category, Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day is an excellent
Buddhist allegory. If the criteria were that a Buddhist film is one representing
Buddhists in a prominent way, the list of Buddhist films would include Kundun,
Little Buddha, Seven Years in Tibet, and a few other usual suspects. Such a list would
exclude what is arguably the best cinematic expression of the logic of karma,
Groundhog Day. Buddhist authors reference the film regularly, and the film is
mentioned in dozens of Buddhist blogs and newsletters. Groundhog Day may be
an obviously Buddhist film to many practitioners, but film scholars have never
mentioned the film in relation to Buddhism in an internationally refereed journal
article or scholarly book chapter. One could include this film as a Buddhist film on
the grounds that the writer Danny Rubin has expressed interest in Buddhism, and
the director Harold Ramis has discussed this element in the DVD voiceover track
(25th anniversary edition), but Ramis specifically broadens this identification to the
‘religious community’, mentioning adherents to Judaism and Christianity and
other religions, who have claimed that the film expresses their teachings.
By encouraging viewers from any and every ‘religious community’ to find
themselves within the cinematic mirror, Ramis obscures the Buddhist connections
in ways that encourage more people to identify with his film. If only 0.7% of
Americans self-identify as Buddhist, it would make sense, from the creating artist’s
point of view, to increase the possibilities of identification by reducing the
specificity of the religious reference points. Groundhog Day is a romantic comedy
in which a character undergoes tremendous spiritual growth, but the film makes
only one brief reference to God or gods.21
The Matrix has been discussed as a ‘Buddhist movie’ in books, articles, and
web pages too, but it is most certainly a hodge-podge of mythologies. More than
anything else, it is a science-fiction adventure film with a strong romantic element.
A young monk tells us that everything is mind, and that there is no spoon, but the
film is not really an expression of Mind Only Buddhism. In fact, there is a ‘real world’
apart from the matrix, and one does not have to be enlightened to see it—it is
enough to be unplugged from the matrix. The film does present our everyday world
as a complete illusion, but the break between Absolute and Relative reality is almost
total in the film. The illusion is a matter of programming created by the cybernetic
overlords rather than an impersonal effect of the subject’s own desire. Also, the hero
must save all humans (in Zion), not all sentient beings. The film owes as much to
Christianity as it does to Buddhism, perhaps more. But the film, as Michael
Brannigan’s essay in The Matrix and Philosophy demonstrates, has been a catalyst for
some discussion of Buddhism. Just as Thomas Tweed had to invent a category for
the people who were highly sympathetic to Buddhism as a way of life but were not
sure they were Buddhists—he calls them ‘nightstand Buddhists’ (Tweed 1999, 74)
because Buddhism will be well represented by the bedside piles of books—so too
do we have to find a way to distinguish movies like The Matrix from movies like The
Cup and Groundhog Day. The latter films can be explicated along Buddhist lines
scene-by-scene, whereas the former is tangentially Buddhist at best. These films,
the draftees, are all dramatic features.
One of the elemental distinctions one makes when teaching literary and
filmic genres is that between fiction and non-fiction, but there is something about
‘Buddhist film’ that looks aside rather than insists on hard distinctions. It would
seem that films such as Kundun would raise generic questions, since it is a
biographical film based on Melissa Mathison’s interviews with the Dalai Lama.
Initially, Maida and the other IBFF organizers thought they would make hard
distinctions along these lines:
[M]y first thought was that I would make a distinction between documentaries
(‘nonfiction’?) and dramatic works (not to mention experimental, art works) . . .
but then we ‘drafted’ Rivers and Tides. ‘Drafted’ is your term; I might use
‘embraced’, though some have used ‘appropriated’. (Maida email to Whalen-
Bridge, October 8, 2011)
Maida thoughtfully considers the difficulty of drawing hard lines: few serious film
viewers will consider documentary film ‘nonfiction’ anymore, as so much attention
has been lavished on the artistic and quasi-fictional element. In ‘A Buddhist
Cinema’, Maida (2009, 28) writes ‘Narrative cinema, whether documentary or
scripted, is the way we now tell our stories to the largest audiences’, and the
mixing together of documentaries and dramatic features has been an essential
element of the ‘Buddhist film’ phenomenon. Features such as Kundun, Little
Buddha, and Seven Years in Tibet come to mind first when the category is
introduced, with much attention also to draftees such as The Matrix and Donnie
Darko, but these films from the mid-1990s through to 2001 are not proper
representative of the phenomenon as a whole.
4. Where is it going? A review of two-dozen Buddhist film

festivals
What is a Buddhist film festival? Not all organizers exercise the same criteria,
but a review of a series of international festivals from 2003–2011 gives us a sense
of proportions. By aggregating information about the major international
festivals—those with six or more films that have described themselves as
international in Internet publicity and which have screened films from several
countries—we will be able to form more solid generalizations about the festival
phenomenon and the particular films that are most frequently selected.
These film festivals were initially organized to promote Buddhist films and to
increase the circulation of Buddhist ideas in North American and European
Festivals Per Year, 2003-11

6
0
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
FIGURE 1
24 Buddhist film festivals, 2003 – 11
countries, and they have spread to Asia as well, with international festivals in
Malaysia (2008), Singapore (2007, 2009, 2011), and Thailand (2005, 2011).22
The conceptual fuzziness of ‘Buddhist film’ for the conference organizers
enhanced their stated aim of popularizing Buddhist film, but the flexibility of the
selection process may, we can speculate, also be part of a larger process—that of
indigenizing Buddhism in non-Asian countries. By setting films made by and for
Buddhists alongside popular commercial films with no direct connection to
Buddhism, the festival organizers have been able, simultaneously, to take
advantage of Buddhism’s cultural novelty while blurring the line between those
films that do and those that do not appear to promote the religion.
Both in terms of production and screenings, the years from 2003 through
2011 have seen a dramatic increase in what might be called the ‘Buddhist film’.
2009 was the annus mirabilis (Figure 2). Nearly 100 different films were shown at
various festivals. Each year between 2003 and 2011, there are more films about
Buddhism, including dramatic features and documentaries. Full-length dramatic
features about topics such as the plight of Tibetans peaked in the 1990s, but
documentaries shown at these festivals have increased dramatically (see Figures 3
and 4). Between 2003 and 2011, there were at least 24 international film festivals
that have described their content as ‘Buddhist’.23 From 2003 until 2007, there were
roughly two festivals each year. Between 2008 and 2011 there have been at least
four festivals per year (see Figure 1).
The first festival was in the United States, and now there are regular festivals
in the USA, Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia. The number of festivals in the
100
80
60
40
20
0
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
FIGURE 2
Films screened per year at the festivals24
1990s 2000s
2010s (projected)
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
FIGURE 3
Documentaries by decade
period of 2008–2011 (17 festivals) is three times that of the previous four-year
period (5 festivals). The numbers of films presented have increased dramatically as
well (see Figure 2).
In the nine years considered here, 209 different films were shown, and there
were, including repeats, 342 screening events.25 Festival organizers created a way
for both larger and smaller films associated with Buddhism to reach audiences,
even though the number of dramatic features films produced by major Hollywood
and European studios declined sharply after the 1990s.
1990s 2000s 2010s
35
30
25
20
15
10
FIGURE 4
Dramatic features
62
TABLE 3
Most-screened films ($ 3)
TITLE DIRECTOR(S) YEAR TYPE
1 Words of My Perfect Teacher Lesley Ann Patton 2003 Documentary 7
2 Peace is Every Step: Meditation in Action: Gaetano Kazuo Maida 1998 Documentary 6
The Life and Work of Thich Nhat Hanh
3 Amongst White Clouds Edward A. Burger 2006 Documentary 6
4 Dhamma Brothers Andrew Kukura/ Jenny Phillips 2008 Documentary 6
5 Cup Khyentse Norbu 1999 Dramatic Feature 6
JOHN WHALEN-BRIDGE
6 Enlightenment Guaranteed Doris Dorrie 2000 Documentary 5

7 Wheel of Time Werner Herzog 2003 Documentary 5
8 Buddha’s Lost Children Mark Verkerk 2006 Documentary 5
9 Devotion of Matthieu Ricard George Schouten/ Babeth M. Vanloo 2008 Documentary 5
10 Tulku: Divine Birth, Ordinary Life Gesar Mukpo 2009 Documentary 5
11 Milarepa Neten Chokling 2006 Dramatic Feature 5
12 Cherry Blossoms Doris Dorrie 2008 Documentary 4
13 Buddha (PBS) David Grubin 2010 Documentary 4
14 Shower (Xizao) Yang Zhang 1999 Dramatic Feature 4
15 Travellers and Magicians Khyentse Norbu 2003 Dramatic Feature 4
16 Un Buda Diego Rafecas 2005 Dramatic Feature 4
17 Compassion in Exile Mickey Lemle 1993 Documentary 3
18 Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man Liam Lunsch 2005 Documentary 3
19 Lion’s Roar Mark Elliot 2006 Documentary 3
20 Blessings: the Tsoknyi Nangchen Nuns of Tibet Victress Hitchcock 2009 Documentary 3
21 Brilliant Moon Neten Chokling 2010 Documentary 3
22 Sky Dancer Jody Kemmerer 2010 Documentary 3
23 Beyond the Mountain Chung Ji-Young 1991 Dramatic Feature 3
24 Dead Man Jim Jarmusch 1995 Dramatic Feature 3
25 Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai Jim Jarmusch 1999 Dramatic Feature 3
26 Angulimala Sutape Tunnirut 2003 Dramatic Feature 3
27 Dreaming Lhasa Ritu Sarin/ Tenzing Sonam 2005 Dramatic Feature 3
28 Book of the Dead Kihachiro Kawamoto 2005 Animation 3
29 Anniversary Ham Tran 2003 Short Film 3
30 King of The Hill ‘Won’t You Pimai Neighbor?’ Greg Daniels/ Mike Judge 2000 TV Episode 3
What kinds of films have predominated at Buddhist film festivals,

documentaries or feature length dramas? Taking into account only films
screened at the two-dozen international Buddhist film festivals under
consideration, what is the ratio of dramatic features to documentary films? The
third category, ‘Other’, collects TV episodes, short films, music videos, and other
less prominent cinematic works that have been screened at the festivals.
Considering the year in which a film was produced rather than screened, we see
that documentaries make up about two-thirds of the screenings across the 24
Buddhist film festivals.26 Occasionally films made before the 1990s are presented,
but only 14 films screened at the 24 festivals were made before the 1990s; if we
look at the ratio of documentary films to dramatic features made in the 1990s,
2000s, and, projecting based on the first two years of the decade, the 2010s, we
see that documentaries are fast outstripping other genres (Figure 3) and that
Buddhist-themed dramatic features have undergone something of a crash
(Figure 4, Table 3).27
TABLE 4
Feature/documentary ratios for films made before/after 2005
Beyond the Mountain 1991 Dramatic Feature
Compassion in Exile 1993 Documentary
Dead Man 1995 Dramatic Feature
Peace is Every Step: Meditation in Action: 1998 Documentary
The Life and Work of Thich Nhat Hanh
The Cup 1999 Dramatic Feature
Shower 1999 Dramatic Feature
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai 1999 Dramatic Feature
Enlightenment Guaranteed 2000 Documentary
Words of My Perfect Teacher 2003 Documentary
Wheel of Time 2003 Documentary
Travellers and Magicians 2003 Dramatic Feature
Angulimala 2003 Dramatic Feature
Un Buda 2005 Dramatic Feature
Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man 2005 Documentary
Dreaming Lhasa 2005 Dramatic Feature
Amongst White Clouds 2006 Documentary
Buddha’s Lost Children 2006 Documentary
Milarepa 2006 Dramatic Feature
Lion’s Roar 2006 Documentary
Dhamma Brothers 2008 Documentary
Devotion of Matthieu Ricard 2008 Documentary
Cherry Blossoms 2008 Documentary
Tulku: Divine Birth, Ordinary Life 2009 Documentary
Blessings 2009 Documentary
Buddha 2010 Documentary
Brilliant Moon 2010 Documentary
Sky Dancer 2010 Documentary
Feature/Documentary Ratio, 1991–2005 Feature/Documentary Ratio, 2006–10
4:1 1:5
Clearly, Buddhist documentaries are a growth industry (see Figure 3). The
strength of the Buddhist documentary relative to the dramatic feature becomes
clear when we look at those films that are that are repeatedly shown. Thirty films
have been shown three or more times; half of these are documentaries. The top 11
films, shown between five and seven times, boast only two feature-length films
(see Figure 4).28
Only one-third of the films made between 1991 and 2005 were
documentaries, but between 2006 and 2011, only one feature-length film,
Milarepa, achieved three screenings (see Table 3). Sixteen of 29 films are
documentaries, suggesting that documentaries and dramatic features are equally
popular, but of the one dozen films that have been shown four or more times, only
four are dramatic features. Of the films that have been shown five or more times—
Words of My Perfect Teacher (2003), Dhamma Brothers (2008), Peace is Every Step
(1998), Amongst White Clouds (2006), Devotion of Matthieu Ricard (2008),
Tulku: Divine Birth, Ordinary Life (2009), and Milarepa (2006)—only Milarepa is a
feature-length film.
It would seem that the supply of feature-length Buddhist films cannot keep
up with demand nearly as well as documentary films, even in terms of raw
numbers (see Table 4).29 Considering all the films screened at the 24 film festivals
under discussion, we see that features appear at roughly 3.5 each year, whereas
the number of festival-worthy documentaries has skyrocketed in the same period.
One effect of relative paucity of feature-length films may be the increased use of
draftees. However, it is hard to say whether a given organizing committee is
motivated by a hunger to include feature-length films whether or not they are
really ‘Buddhist’, or if, instead, the choices result merely from a more adventurous
approach to the idea of a ‘Buddhist film’.
By virtue of its inclusion in an International Buddhist Film Festival event,
Donnie Darko forces the question as to what constitutes a Buddhist movie,
although there have been many similarly provocative selections. This film might
be considered Buddhist if the film’s narrative was inspired by the Vajrayana
Buddhist concept of the bardo, or if the slide between possible realities
represented in the film were a good match with a Buddhist conception. Donnie
Darko is indeed a film about someone who finds himself mysteriously between
lives, and commentators have made connections to Buddhism by noting the
character’s deepening awareness of interconnectedness and responsibility. Of
course, a film that is ‘Buddhist’ on such grounds could just as easily be understood
as a ‘Christian film’. Donnie sacrifices himself so that someone else might live: any
film that foregrounds a person putting self before other could be interpreted in
the key of bodhisattva, or that of Christian self-sacrifice. The eponymous character
Donnie does experience fearful uncertainty in his in-between-realms journey, and
he has a terrible sense of the consequences of his choices. All the same, the film
does not offer any representations of Buddhism; it does not seem that the plot
was inspired by Buddhism in the way that the plot of Jacob’s Ladder was; and the
film is not an especially good story on which to foist an allegorical explanation.
The film is a draftee rather than a ‘volunteer’, even if the notion that human beings
continuously experience intermediate stages—of which the one between death
and rebirth is the most important but not the only such circumstance—does map
well onto Vajrayana Buddhist beliefs. IBFF events attempt to be more judicious,
whereas the Calgary festivals have screened films such as No Country for Old Men
(2007), Life of Brian (1979), 12 Angry Men (1957) (2008 CBFF), and Finding Nemo
(2011 CBFF).
Why are documentary Buddhist films thriving while feature-length films are
declining? Obviously they cost less to make, but expensive films continue to be
made even in recessionary times, and films such as Kundun and The Cup have not
been produced in the last 10 years, which begs the question: Is the ‘Buddha boom’
over? The proliferation of Buddhist film festivals and the healthy market for
Buddhist book publication suggest that general interest is not declining,
and the documentary (the healthiest form of Buddhist film) is stronger than
ever. One possibility is that the documentary addresses the niche of Buddhists
and ‘nightstand Buddhists’ more efficiently than do dramatic features.
Another possible factor is the desire of Hollywood producers to cultivate better
relations with China, which may have dampened enthusiasm for the Tibetan
imagery that was so important in the first half of the 1990s, as Erica Ho (2011) has
argued. Or it could be that Western Buddhism, as it ‘gains citizenship’ in its host
countries, loses its exoticism. More research needs to be done on this interesting
problem.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge valuable suggestions from Jacqueline Chia, Francesca
Cho, Nirmala Iswari, Gaetano Kazuo Maida, and Bill Mihalopoulos.
NOTES
1. An early mention of Buddha in American cinema, perhaps the first, occurred in
the 1918 film The Soul of Buddha. This silent film, which featured one of cinema’s
first sex symbols, actress Theda Bara, asserts in its title that Buddha had a soul
and so shows little or no knowledge of actual Buddhism. Why does the film
mention Buddha at all? Buddhism would appear to function in this case as a
mere backdrop. A few years later another silent film would advertise Buddhism:
The Silver Buddha (1923) was a crime drama centred on the famous Orientalist
character Dr Fu Manchu. Once again, a Buddhist object directs the viewer’s
attention to things exotic and strange. In the following decade Buddha showed
up in several other crime dramas, e.g., A Scream in the Night (1935). While it may
seem from these three titles as if cinematic misappropriation of Buddhism were
a uniquely Western phenomenon, the 1980 film Zhang Huang Di or The Buddhist
Assassinator has been described on its Internet Movie Database website as
‘perhaps the funniest Kung Fu film of the 70’s!’ More recently from Hong Kong,
Xian Fa Zhi Ren, known in English as either The Justice of the Buddha or The
Kicking Buddha (1990), features a female undercover detective who goes from
Japan to Hong Kong to rescue young girls from a prostitution ring. As we can
see, there is a long history of filmmakers, both in the Asian film world and in
Hollywood, linking Buddhism with sex and crime.
2. Before the 1990s literature was the most important conduit of Buddhist imagery
and theme from Asia into the American imagination. Jack Kerouac’s roman-a-clef
about Beat generation Buddhists The Dharma Bums, Allen Ginsberg’s Vajrayana-
inspired poetry such as ‘Wichita Vortex Sutra’, and Gary Snyder’s entire oeuvre–
especially his 1986 masterpiece Mountains and Rivers without End—all helped
increase America’s ‘cultural literacy’ such that words like ‘karma’ and ‘dharma’
are no longer foreign words.
3. Gaitano Kazuo Maida says that the organizers for the IBFF festivals used the
distinction between scripted and unscripted films to make a clear distinction
between fictional and documentary films (Personal communication from Maida,
31 October 2011.)
4. Ben Burtt, who developed such famous sounds as the lightsabre swish in
Star Wars films, formed the Ewok language by combining ‘Nepali,
Mongolian, and Tibetan syllables with made-up words and a little pidgin
English’ (Parrack 2005, n.p.). It is tempting to marry the possibilities of
this fact to thematic considerations (for which, see Bortolin 2005), but then
we read that Chewbacca’s language was made from bits of walrus calls and
other animal languages. It would be possible to develop a thesis about
the orientalist/primitivist matrix of possibilities here, but it would be
overwrought.
5. ‘The Endless Further’ contains ‘The Buddhist Guide to Christmas Movies’, with a
picture of George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) at the beginning of the post.
On another site named ‘Living Dharma’, Peter Hata writes, ‘Remember the movie
It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart? It occured [sic] to me how the
movie—despite the fact that one of the sub-plots regards whether or not
the bumbling guardian angel will get his ‘wings’ or not—is really an illustration
of the Buddhist concept of Ohigan, or “other shore”’. Brigid Elsken Galloway
writes several hundred words on the film in her blog, ‘Adventures of a Southern
Buddhist-Catholic Writer’. In The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding
Buddhism, Gary Gach (2009) writes in a section entitled ‘Buddha at the Movies’,
that the Capra film fits in the club well: ‘Hollywood films can have unintended
Buddhist themes, such as It’s a Wonderful Life, in which we see what life would be
like if one single person hadn’t lived, revealing how each person affects
everyone else’. Gach also mentions Gone With the Wind, provocatively as a film
about emptiness, as well as Rashomon (1950) and Star Wars (288 – 293). Barbara
O’Brien (2008, n.p.) did not claim It’s a Wonderful Life (1937) in her ‘About
Buddhism’ blog, but a respondent signed as ‘J.K.’ listed it as a top-five favourite:
‘Dead Man, The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007), It’s a Wonderful Life, Donnie Darko, The
Butterfly Effect (2004), etc . . . .’
6. The uncertainties of Hollywood bookkeeping must be acknowledged when

discussing the market performance of films, one complicating factor being the
practice known in the industry as ‘Hollywood accounting’, which refers to a way
of keeping the books such that films that have clearly done well are shown to
have made little or no profit. Writers such as Art Buchwald and actors such as
Tom Hanks have sued studios when they were contractually due a share of
profits that studios had attempted to deny occurred through Hollywood
accounting. Such as we find it, the ratio of cost to reported box office revenues
gives an index. Internet Movie Database reports that the $30 million investment
into Kundun earned $5 million in box office receipts. It is very difficult to know
how much films really make, but it would seem Scorsese’s attempt to represent
Tibet authentically rather than exotically, as he did when he employed mainly
Tibetan actors and no Hollywood stars, did not pay off. Mel Gibson’s Passion of
the Christ on the other hand earned the initial investment ten-fold, even though
the film was in Aramaic. The Urban Dictionary website, http://www.
urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flop definition for ‘flop’ is ‘Something
that fails miserably’, and the specific example provided is from cinema: ‘The Final
Fantasy movie was the biggest flop since Battlefield Earth.’ A ‘flop’ or a ‘bomb’ is a
film in which costs greatly exceed box office revenues, whatever the
artistic merits of the film. The Wikipedia list of Hollywood’s greatest bombs
give first and second place in Cutthroat Island ($143 million lost) and Alamo
($143 million lost). The films at the bottom of this list, The Warrior’s Way, lost a
mere $32,116,010. Kundun falls short in its losses and so fails to make the ‘biggest
flop’ list:
Budget: $28,000,000 (estimated)
Gross: $5,532,301 (box office receipts during period of initial release)
A sub-page of the IMDB page on Kundun presents the $5.5 million figure as the
amount earned at the box office by 29 March 1998, with not quite another
million dollars from Germany and the UK. By comparison, The Last Temptation of
Christ, which was a less expensive film to make, did a little better than even
according to the Internet Movie Database web page:
Budget:$7,000,000(estimated)
Gross:$8,373,585(USA)
The term ‘flop’ is highly dramatic and can be inaccurate; a successful movie can
be labelled a flop when a rumour snowballs into a factoid. In ‘“The Wolverine,”
“Waterworld” and Other Flops That Weren’t’, Scott Mendelson points out that
Wolverine and Waterworld were highly successful films that received a bad rap
from critics. Of the supposed flop Waterworld, Mendelson points out that the
film made a reasonable profit, even though the initial box office earnings were
not auspicious: ‘While the film suffered from bleh word of mouth (it was basically
a character-driven sci-fi downer with two massive bookend action scenes) and
eventually cashed out at $88 million in the US, overseas grosses saved the day.
Amassing $175 million in international dollars, the picture limped out of the red
with a respectable $266 million in global box office.’
We must take the IMDB reports of opening box office earnings as an index to a
film’s relative success and not as a definitive statement about whether or not the
film was profitable, a problem further compounded by so-called Hollywood
accounting.
7. Brad Pitt is reportedly not allowed to enter China because of his participation in
Seven Years in Tibet, and Chinese authorities were outraged by Kundun as well.
Erica Ho’s (2011) ‘Can Hollywood Afford to Make Films China Doesn’t Like?’
speculates that it would cost a major studio too much to anger China. The first
loss in revenue happens when a film is banned in China: ‘A movie that doesn’t
make the cut automatically loses out on the billions of renminbi China’s
audiences have to offer. In the late 1990s, Kundun, a biographical film about the
14th Dalai Lama’s childhood, rankled Beijing for its negative portrayal of the
Chinese government. The government went so far as to threaten all future
business with Disney, which distributed the biopic.’
The studio cannot, however, make decisions on a film-by-film basis, since China
will punish a major studio for not respecting its wishes. Ho (2011) writes:
‘The situation was not resolved until Michael Ovitz himself, Disney’s president at the
time, privately visited Beijing to confer with then President Jiang Zemin.
The unusual move proved to be worth it: earlier this year, Disney (and China) green-
lighted a Shanghai Disneyland project that that will cost the Los Angeles–based
company $3.7 billion to build. ’More recently, ‘China’s irritation with Hollywood over
films like Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun has subsided as Hollywood has steered
clear of pro-Tibetan subject matter’, and Ho suggests that China’s influence is likely
to grow in future years: ‘China’s policy on censorship is not likely to change—a fact
that will encourage Hollywood to continue catering to its policies. As China makes
its own movie market more open, the space for making films critical of the Asian
powerhouse may continue to shrink’. Tania Brannigan (2009, n.p.) reported in a
November 2009 newspaper article entitled ‘Beijing Approves Disneyland-style Park
in Shanghai’ that Chinese authorities gave Disney the go-ahead for a $3.5bn theme
park after more than 10 years of on-and-off talks: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl
d/2009/nov/04/china-approval-disneyland-style-park
8. For the full program, see http://www.calgary-buddhist.ab.ca/Attachments/
FINAL-FILM%20SERIES%202011.pdf, accessed December 1, 2013.
9. The films for the 2003 festival were: Travellers and Magicians (2003), The
Anniversary (2003), Chasing Buddha (2000), Tassajara (2003), Peace Is Every Step:
Meditation In Action: The Life and Work of Thich Nhat Hanh (1998), Hi! Dharma
(2004), Words of My Perfect Teacher (2003), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
(1999), an episode of the cartoon series King of the Hill (2000), Life of the Buddha
(Japanese, n.d.), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Home Street Home (2003), Wheel of Time
(2003), and Shower (1999).
10. See International Buddhist Film Festival Facebook Page.
11. For a review of the various ‘incarnations’ undergone by the Bar do thos grol as it
has been variously translated into Western languages, see Lopez 1998.
12. The movie Birth (2004), on the other hand, is directly concerned with the
possibility of reincarnation, but the film’s closure emphatically turns away from
Buddhist approaches to rebirth or samsaric experience as something
conditioned by unvanquished desire. In this way, Birth can be contrasted with
Groundhog Day (1993), a film which never mentions religion (except in a joking
way) but which centres on the struggle of a character to overcome egoistic
desire, eventually leading to his release from his constant ‘rebirth’ into the same
day of his life.
13. See the Buddhist Film Festival’s “about” page: http://www.buddhistfilmfou
ndation.org/about. Accessed December 1, 2013.
14. Americans tend to be counted as either ‘ethnic Buddhists’ or ‘converts’, with the
latter group privileged over the former group at least until the mid-1990s. The
main source of irritation to some scholars and multi-cultural activists was that
Euro-centric accounts predominated and excluded Asian Americans from
historical descriptions of the religion as it exists in North America. Until the 3rd
edition of Rick Fields’ (1992) How the Swans Came to the Lake, there was very
little attention given to so-called ‘ethnic Buddhists’.
15. The collection of fascicles presents the essentials values of the Way of the
Samurai: ‘If by setting one’s heart right every morning and evening, one is
able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the
Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling’
(Tsunetomo 1979, 17 – 18).One could compare this value to Buddhist
renunciation, and there is a genealogical connection among these ideas,
but the warrior ethos will seem incommensurate with Buddhism—at least as it
is usually constructed in the West—to many film-goers. In his enthusiastic
appraisal of the text, Mishima discounts the possibility that Hagakure could be
read properly or authentically by modern readers, and Mishima’s anxiety
underscores the exclusivity of the text’s force and appeal, at least as Mishima
understood it: ‘At present, if Hagakure is read at all, I do not know from what
point of view it is approached. If there is still a reason for reading it, I can only
guess that it is for considerations completely opposite to those during the
war’ (Sparling 1983, 89).
16. For a concise review of the four causes, see Andrea Falcon’s (2008) article
‘Aristotle on Causality.’ Falcon directs the reader to Metaphysics V.2 for Aristotle’s
discussion of all four.
17. Though it is a formulaic action-thriller, the film occasionally makes interesting use of
narrative motifs from Vajrayana Buddhism, such as when the Buddha figure—the
eponymous Golden Child—converts a demon into a dharma protector.
18. The film finally attributes these experiences to an experimental drug used by
the military during the Vietnam War, thus allowing the naturalist plot (in
which the protagonist has been damaged by drugs) to displace the
supernaturalist plot (in which the audience is allowed to think the character
actually died in Vietnam but, like the ghost in Sixth Sense, cannot yet accept
his situation).
19. See In the Shadow of Buddha’s official website, http://www.shadowofbuddha.

com/about/about-the-film-long-synopsis/.
20. See Norman Friedman’s (1974) entry on Allegory in the Princeton Encyclopedia of
Poetry and Poetics: ‘If the allegorical references are continuous throughout the
narrative, the fiction “is” an [allegory]. If it is intermittent, if [allegory] is picked up
and dropped again at pleasure . . . we say that the fiction shows allegorical
tendencies’ (12).
21. Phil attempts to prove to Rita that he is experiencing the same day
repeatedly by making astonishingly accurate predictions about what will
happen next. When asked if he thinks he is God, he says he is not the God,
only a god.
22. Undoubtedly there are many more festivals than are registered in this article, but
not all have been equally well publicized. All of the festivals under discussion
have been publicized on the Internet, and they have issued publicity materials in
English, and most have maintained stable webpages in line with the intention to
create a series of festivals over several years rather than have a one-off event.
For example, an organization in Sri Lanka has also hosted annual Buddhist film
competitions and festivals in 2009 – 2011; the organizing Light of Asia
Foundation lists movies that they have screened on their webpage, but they
do not publish programs for specific conferences in English. From the
information available on the Light of Asia webpage, it does not seem that the Sri
Lankan festivals have been nearly as international as the festivals discussed in
this article.
23. I exclude festivals for which I have not been able to obtain a complete list of
films, such as the Calgary 2006 festival mentioned on the Calgary Buddhist Film
Festival homepage. No festivals with six or fewer films has been included. Refer
my References section for website information.
24. There was clearly an IBFF-affiliated festival in Amsterdam in 2006, but I have
not been able to locate an accurate list of films screened. The Buddhist Film
Festival of Europe page (http://www.bffe.org/nl/home/archief/) mentions it,
but so far no one has been able to provide a list of films screened.
25. Many films are shown more than once. If one film is shown six times over the
years, that would count as ‘six screening events’.
26. 135 documentaries out of 209 films ¼ 64.9%.
27. Of course, there is no way to know whether the trends will continue as
projected in the 2010s; given that the Buddhist film festival phenomenon
seems to have peaked in 2009, it is likely that numbers will decline, but
the projection allows us to see the robust growth in documentary
production.
28. The top documentaries, based on a tally of all 24 festivals, are Words of My Perfect
Teacher (7), Peace is Every Step: Meditation in Action: The Life and Work of Thich
Nhat Hanh (6), Amongst White Clouds (6), Dhamma Brothers (6), Enlightenment
Guaranteed (5), Wheel of Time (5), Buddha’s Lost Children (5), The Devotion of
Matthieu Ricard (5), and Tulku: Divine Birth, Ordinary Life (5). The two top features
are The Cup (5) and Milarepa (5).
29. The first films to sell out at Singapore’s 2011 Asian Buddhist Film Festival were
the Tibet-related documentaries Sky Dancer, My Reincarnation, and Brilliant
Moon. Alex Lau’s nostalgic Echoes of the Rainbow, a feature-length film from
Hong Kong, was included because it represented Chinese life prominently,
although the characters in the film are Christian, not Buddhist. That film and
Qixia Temple 1937, a feature-length film about an historical episode in which
monks opened the temple gates to protect lay people during the Japanese
attacks, fared moderately well but did not sell out. Maida (2011) points out,
however, that the years from 2008 – 2011 have been marked by a strong
recession, and so the increase in the production of successful documentaries
over fictional films may be entirely due to economic factors: ‘We’ve been in
recessionary times for at least a couple of years (certainly here and in the EU)
and the documentary is usually the less expensive path to a completed film,
with funds often raised for production with no commercial considerations (not
requiring box office or broadcast revenue to repay costs). A dramatic feature
usually is a business proposition that seeks a solid return on investment and in
these lean times, more mainstream bets, rather than the still marginal Buddhist
ones, are the rule. It’s always hard, but still a lot easier to raise say US$500k
from foundations, etc., that don’t need to be repaid, than to try and raise US
$3 – 5 million or more for a dramatic work that will need to generate at least
twice the budget before investors get a return.’ (Maida, personal
communication, 31 October 2011).
REFERENCES
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Touchstone Pictures, 2004.
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Paramount Pictures, 1984. Dramatic Feature.
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Home Street Home. Dir. George Schouten. Netherlands, 2003. Documentary. [2003.
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In the Shadow of Buddha. Dir. Heather Kessinger. Perfs. Lama Palden, Pema Chodron.
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It’s a Wonderful Life. Dir. Frank Capra. Perfs. James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel
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Jacob’s Ladder. Dir. Adrian Lyne. Perfs. Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Jason
Alexander. Tristar Pictures, 1990. Dramatic Feature. [2003.IBFF.LA].
Kicking Buddha (Xian Fa Zhi Ren). Dirs. Godfrey Ho and Chris Li. Perfs. Yukari Oshima,
Pan Pan Yeung, Dick Wei, Toby Russell. Fox Network, 1990. Dramatic Feature.
King of The Hill. “Won’t You Pimai Neighbour?” Writs. John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky.
Dirs. Boowhan Lim and Kyounghee Lim. Twentieth Century Fox, 2000. Fox. TV
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Kundun. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perfs. Tenzin Thuthob Tsarong, Tencho Gyalpo,Sonam
Phuntsok. Touchstone, 1997. Dramatic Feature.
Last Temptation of Christ. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perfs. Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Paul
Greco, Steve Shill. Universal Pictures, 1988. Dramatic Feature.
Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Dir. Lian Lunson. Perfs. Leonard Cohen, Martha
Wainwright, Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker, Rufus Wainwright. Liongsgate, 2005.
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Life of Brian. Dir. Terry Jones. Perfs. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric
Idle. Sony Pictures, 1979. Dramatic Feature. [2008.CBFF.CAL].
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Life of the Buddha. Dir. Kritsaman Wattananarong. Perfs. Sarut Wijittranon, Supattra
Thiwanon and Komgrit Triwimol. Mono Film, Thailand, 2007. Animated Film.
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Light of Asia (Prem Sanyas). Dirs. Franz Osten and Himansu Rai. 1925. [2009.BFFE.AMS]
[2009.IBFF.LON].
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Little Buddha. Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci. Perfs. Keanu Reeves, Bridget Fonda, Chris Isaak,
Ruocheng Ying, Sogyal Rinpoche, Ven. Geshe Tsultim Gyelsen. Miramax Films,
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Lost Horizon. Dir. Frank Capra. Perfs. Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett
Horton. Columbia Pictures, 1937. Dramatic Feature.
Matrix. Dirs. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Perfs. Keanu Reeves, Laurence
Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving. Warner Bros, 1999. Dramatic
Feature.
Milarepa. Dir. Neten Chokling. Perfs. Orgyen Tobgyal, Kelsang Chukie Tethtong,
Jamyang Lodro. Shining Moon Productions, 2006. Dramatic Feature. [2005.IBFF.
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Jivkov, Francesco De Vito. Icon Productions, 2004. Dramatic Feature.
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Qixia Temple 1937. Dir. Zheng Fang Nan. Perfs. Xin Hua, Song Jun, Ding Meng Yu,
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Takashi Shimura. Daiei Motion Picture Company, 1950. Dramatic Feature.
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[2009.IBFF.LON].
Sacrifice: Child Prostitutes from Burma. Dir. Ellen Bruno. Bruno Films, 1998.
Documentary. [2009.IBFF.LON].
Satya: Prayer for the Enemy. Dir. Ellen Bruno. Bruno Films, 1995. Documentary. [2008.
IBFF.MEX] [2009.IBFF.LON].
Scream in the Night. Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer. Perfs. Lon Chaney Jr., Sheila Terry, Zarah
Tazil, Philip Anh. Ray Kirkwood Productions, 1935. Dramatic Feature.
Seven Years in Tibet. Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Perfs. Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, BD
Wong. Mandalay Entertainment, 1997. Dramatic Feature.
Shower (Xizao). Dir. Yang Zhang. Perfs. Jiayi Du, Bing He, Wu Jiang. Imar Film,
1999. Dramatic Feature. [2003.IBFF.LA] [2005.IBFF.SF] [2007.IBFF.SG]
[2009.IBFF.LON].
Siddhartha. Dir. Conrad Rooks. Perfs. Shashi Kappor, Simi Gerewal, Romesh Sharma,
Pinchoo Kapoor. Lotus Films, 1972. Dramatic Feature. [2005.BBFF.BKK] [2009.
CBFF.CAL].
Silver Buddha. Dir. A.E. Colby. Perfs. H. Agar Lyons, Fred Paul, Joan Clarkson,
Humberston Wright. Stoll Picture Productions, 1923. Dramatic Feature.
Simpsons. “She of Little Faith”. Writ. Bill Freiberger. Dir. Steven Dean Moore. Fox, 2001.
TV Series. [2007.IBFF.SG].
Sky Burial. Dir. Ellen Bruno. Bruno Films, 2005. Documentary. [2009.IBFF.LON].
Sky Dancer. Dir. Jody Kemmerer. Perf. Khandroma Kunzang Wangmo. 2010.
Documentary. [2010.BFFE.AMS] [2010.IBFF.SF] [2011.ABFF.SG].
Soul of Buddha. Dir. J. Gordon Edwards. Perfs. Theda Bara, Victor Kennard, Florence
Martin, Tony Merlo. Fox Film Corporation, 1918. Dramatic Feature.
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. Dir. Richard Marquand. Perfs. Mark Hamill,
Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams. Lucasfilm, 1983. Dramatic Feature.
Tassajara. Dir. Frazer Bradshaw. Short Film. [2003.IBFF.LA].
The Cup. Dir. Khyentse Norbu. Perfs. Orgyen Tobgyal, Jamyang Norbu, Neten Chokling.
Fine Line Features, 1999. Dramatic Feature. [2005.IBFF.SF] [2005.BBFF.BKK] [2007.
IBFF.SG] [2008.IBFF.MEX] [2009.IBFF.LON].
Travellers and Magicians. Dir. Khyentse Norbu. Perfs. Tshewang Dendup, Sonam
Lhamo, Lhakpa Dorji, Deki Yangzom. Prayer Flag Pictures, 2003. Dramatic
Feature. [2003.IBFF.LA] [2005.BBFF.BKK] [2007.IBFF.SG] [2008.IBFF.MEX].
Tulku: Divine Birth, Ordinary Life. Dir. Gesar Mukpo. Perfs. Gesar Mukpo, Dylan
Henderson, Ashoka Mukpo, Khyentse Norbu. National Film Board of Canada,
2009. Documentary. [2009.BFFE.AMS] [2009.IBFF.LON] [2010.CBFF.CAL] [2010.
IBFF.SF] [2010.BF.DC].
Twelve Angry Men. Dir. Sidney Lumet. Perfs. Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E.
G. Marshall. Orion-Nova Productions, 1957. Dramatic Feature.
Un Buda. Dir. Diego Rafecas. Perfs. Agustin Markert, Carolina Fal, Diego Rafecas, Julieta
Cardinali. Zazan Produccions, 2005. Dramatic Feature. [2009.BFFE.AMS] [2009.
IBFF.LON] [2009.CBFF.CAL] [2011.BF.DC].
Wheel of Time. Dir. Werner Herzog. Perfs. The Dalai Lama, Lama Lhundup Woeser,
Thakma Jigme Sangpo, Matthieu Ricard. Werner Herzog Filmproduktion, 2003.
Documentary. [2003.IBFF.LA] [2005.BBFF.BKK] [2009.MBFF.MEL] [2009.IBFF.LON]
[2011.BF.DC].
Why Has Bodhidharma Left for the East?: A Zen Fable. Dir. Bae Yong-Kyun. Perfs. Yi Pan-
Yong, Sin Won-Sop, Huang Hae-Jin, Ko Su-Myong. Bae Yong-Kyun Productions,

1989. Dramatic Feature. [2005.BBFF.BKK] [2009.CBFF.CAL].
Words of My Perfect Teacher. Dir. Lesley Ann Patten. Perfs. Khyentse Norbu, Luc Dierckx,
Louise Rodd. ZIJI, 2003. Documentary. [2003.IBFF.LA] [2005.IBFF.SF] [2007.IBFF.
SG] [2008.IBFF.MEX] [2008.CBFF.CAL] [2009.IBFF.LON] [2011.BF.DC].
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FILM FESTIVALS AND WEB LINKS (websites accessed 1 December 2013

unless stated otherwise)
2003.IBFF.LA: International Buddhist Film Festival., Los Angeles, USA; http://www.
buddhistfilmfoundation.org/events/ibff-2003-los-angeles-opens-november-20/
2003.TFF.MEL: Tibetan Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia. http://www.acmi.net.au/
tibetan_film_festival.aspx
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ajarnforum.net/vb/the-virtual-pub/46843-bangkok-international-buddhist-film-
fest-jan-11th-27th.html
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buddhistfilmfoundation.org/news/sf-bay-area-site-of-next-ibff-2/
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tibetan_film_festival_2005.aspx
2007.CBFF.CAL: Calgary Buddhist Film Festival, Calgary, Canada. http://www.calgary-
buddhist.ab.ca/2007%20collateral/Library%20Series%202007.pdf
2007.IBFF.SG: International/Asian Buddhist Film Festival, Singapore. http://www.bu
ddhistfilmfoundation.org/events/2007-ibff-debuts-in-singapore/
2008.BFFE.AMS: Buddhist Film Festival Europe: Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://www.
bffe.org/nl/programma/festival-2008/
buddhist.ab.ca/buddhist_films.htm
2008.IBFF.MEX: International Buddhist Film Festival, Mexico. http://www.buddhistfil
mfoundation.org/news/2008-ibff-to-open-in-mexico-city/
2008.WBFF.KL: Wesak Buddhist Buddhist Film Festival, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. http://
www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id¼12,6332,0,0,1,0
2009.BFFE.AMS: Buddhist Film Festival Europe: Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://www.

buddhist.ab.ca/Attachments/2009_FILM%20SERIES%20BROCHURE.pdf
2009.IBFF.LON: International Buddhist Film Festival, London, UK. http://www.barbican.
org.uk/ibff
2009.MBFF.MEL: Melbourne Buddhist Film Festival, Melbourne Australia. http://www.
acmi.net.au/buddhist_ff.aspx
2009.THIS.SG: T.H.I.S. (Thus Have I Seen), Singapore. http://thisfilmfest.com/about/bff2009/
2010.BF.DC: BuddhaFest, Washington, DC. http://www.buddhafest.org/films-talks/
2010.BFFE.AMS: Buddhist Film Festival Europe, Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://www.
buddhistfilmfoundation.org/other-fests/; http://www.bffe.org/nl/programma/
festival-2010/
2010.CBFF.CAL: 2010 Calgary Buddhist Film Festival, Calgary, Canada. http://www.cal
gary-buddhist.ab.ca/Attachments/2010%20Film%20Series%20Hand%20out.pdf
2010.IBFF.SF: International Buddhist Film Festival, San Francisco, US. http://www.bu
ddhistfilmfoundation.org/events/ibff-showcase-2010-full-schedule/
2011.ABFF.SG: Asian Buddhist Film Festival, Singapore. Accessed October 31, 2011.
http://asianbuddhistfilmfest.org/thefilms.php
2011.BF.DC: BuddhaFest, Washington, DC. http://www.buddhafest.org/films-and-talks/
2011.BFFE.AMS: Buddhist Film Festival Europe, Amsterdam, Netherlands. http://www.
2011.CBFF.CAL: 2011 Calgary Buddhist Film Festival, Calgary, Canada. http://www.cal
gary-buddhist.ab.ca/Attachments/FINAL-FILM%20SERIES%202011.pdf
2011.WIFF.KL: 2011 Wesak International Film Festival, Kuala Lumpur. http://www.wiff.
org.my/index.php?movie-screening-times
John Whalen-Bridge is Associate Professor in the Department of English

Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. He is the
author of Political Fiction and the American Self and has co-edited a four-
book series for SUNY on Buddhism and American culture. Buddhism and
American Cinema will be published in 2014.
Address: Department of English Language and Literature, National
University of Singapore, Block AS5, 7 Arts Link, Singapore 117570.
Email: ellwbj@nus.edu.sg

What Is A Buddhist Film

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What is a ‘Buddhist Film?’

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It seems that once we start looking for Buddha, he’s everywhere.

Contemporary Buddhism, 2014

1. Representation, intention, and interpretation

Possibly Mathison’s comment is motivated by a wish to rescue the film from

some the wrong way.

2. Criteria: The International Buddhist Film Festival approach

Facebook page, is to ‘utilize the powerful medium of motion pictures to foster

In an interview, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Fox, whose biographical

‘Buddhist-themed’ designates intention on the part of the makers to include films

got my attention. (Falsani 2007)

Popular advocates of Buddhism in the West typically underscore

3. Multiple motivation and artistic expression

motivation or on biographical facts (or rumours) about the maker is a highly

Formal Cause: Comedy representing Buddha (2010): documentary about

Material Cause: Set in a monastery in Bir, Burma VJ (2008): documentary

Maida seems to be referring specifically to mere ornamentation, presumably

between two kinds of ‘Buddhist-by-implication’ films. One kind of film would be

4. Where is it going? A review of two-dozen Buddhist film

Festivals Per Year, 2003-11

1990s 2000s 2010s

6 Enlightenment Guaranteed Doris Dorrie 2000 Documentary 5

What kinds of films have predominated at Buddhist film festivals,

6. The uncertainties of Hollywood bookkeeping must be acknowledged when

19. See In the Shadow of Buddha’s official website, http://www.shadowofbuddha.

Wohler, Petra Zieser, Ulrike Kreiner. Megaherz TV Fernsehproduktion GmbH,

Yong, Sin Won-Sop, Huang Hae-Jin, Ko Su-Myong. Bae Yong-Kyun Productions,

p. 28. Accessed October 11, 2011. http://www.rhfamilyfoundation.org/P/MFB/

Findings in Recent Scholarship, edited by Duncan Williams, and Christopher

FILM FESTIVALS AND WEB LINKS (websites accessed 1 December 2013

2009.CBFF.CAL: Calgary Buddhist Film Festival, Calgary, Canada. http://www.calgary-

John Whalen-Bridge is Associate Professor in the Department of English

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