IBFF Official Selection Series Schedule

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The IBFF Official Selection Series launches on December 8, 2024 at its home venue, the Smith Rafael Film Center.

Co-presented by California Film Institute and Buddhist Film Foundation, the IBFF Official Selections Series is ongoing. These special in-theater-only event screenings feature live participation of filmmakers, directors, or film subjects, and are one time only.

Please stay tuned for news on upcoming events and screenings.

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Pig at the Crossing
Directed by Khyentse Norbu
Bhutan / 2024 / English, and Dzongkha with English subtitles / 122 min plus Q&A / Drama
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Sunday, December 8, 4:30 pm
Live Zoom Q&A with Director Khyentse Norbu

[asian man in white checkered top under a dark brown leather jacket with assorted decals, stares out blankly in a golden, shadowy room with fabric walls and hanging and bright spot over his head]Filmed on location in the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, Pig at the Crossing joins a select group of ambitious films that take the viewer on a journey through the bardo—the gap, or interval, between this life and the next (or, between birth and death). These include Bardo, by Alejandro Iñarritu, as well as Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder, Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, Giuseppe Tornatore’s A Pure Formality, and even The Sixth Sense, among others. Unlike those, however, Norbu’s playful film is a low budget project that carries with it the director’s keen sense of all the resonances of the bardo teachings, a key component of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, detailed in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

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