The first International Buddhist Film Festival-Europe is being presented by Holland’s IBFF-Europe Foundation October 22–24, 2006 at Filmmuseum Cinerama in Amsterdam. The theme for this first IBFF in Amsterdam is “Tibet in the Movies.”
“What’s special about the feature films we will present is that they are not only about Tibet, but they have been made by Tibetans and/or the cast is for the most part Tibetan,” program director Babeth VanLoo explains. “After the first wave of Hollywood films using Tibetan themes, this is new.”
The festival opens on Sunday night with the Dutch premiere of Milarepa, the directorial debut of Neten Chökling, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher and abbot of a large monastery in India. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and is currently screening in select cities in the U.S. and Canada. Neten Chöling was previously a featured actor in The Cup and second unit director of Travellers & Magicians, both directed by Khyentse Norbu. Neten Chökling will attend and take questions from the audience.
Monday is devoted to the films of Khyentse Norbu, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher also known as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, with screenings of The Cup (1999, nominated for the Palm d’Or at the Cannes film festival) and Travellers & Magicians, (2003) which had its U.S. premiere at IBFF 2003 LA. The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) will host a reception for this evening.
This inaugural edition of the IBFF-EU will close on Tuesday with a program of live music and rap by Shonu, after which there will be two more Dutch premieres: The Oracle by Canadian documentary maker David Cherniack, and the feature film Dreaming Lhasa, whose directors Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam will attend the screening and take questions from the audience.
