The 8th annual Buddhist Film Festival Europe (BFFE) opens in Amsterdam October 4, 2013 for a three day run featuring sixteen films from eight nations.
This year’s edition will be presented at the EYE Film Institute Netherlands, in an extraordinary new facility built on the banks of the Ij (“eye”) River in the Overhoeks district of Amsterdam, with four screens, exhibition space, shops, a cafe and offices for the institute’s headquarters.
The first BFFE, in Amsterdam in 2006, was a copresentation with the IBFF, and IBFF continues to advise the BFFE on programming. This year, six titles nominated here were included: Samsara, by Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson (USA), Thangka, by Hasi Chaolu (China), Olo the Boy From Tibet, by Hisaya Iwasa (Japan), Escape From Tibet, by Maria Blumencron (Germany), Digital Dharma, by Dafna Yachin (USA) and Tokyo Waka, by John Haptas and Kristine Samuelson (USA), and another, Intangible Asset No. 82, by Emma Franz (Australia), had its US premiere in a copresentation by IBFF at the San Francisco World Music Festival in 2012.
BFFE festival director Babeth VanLoo is a member of the IBFF Advisory Council and was the founding program director of BOS-TV, the only Buddhist television station in Europe. At BOS she was involved in the production of most programs and is an accomplished filmmaker herself, known for her films (as director) Inner Voice: Meredith Monk, The Devotion of Matthieu Ricard (with George Schouten) and Khandro Rinpoche—A Woman’s Path of Peace. BOS was the subject of an eight film IBFF Showcase at IBFF 2009 LONDON.
