IBFF Official Selection Series Begins December 8

After the successful four-day festival in Barcelona, Spain, International Buddhist Film Festival launches its Official Selection Series at its home venue, the Smith Rafael Film Center. Khyentse Norbu’s latest film, Pig at the Crossing, starts off the series with its North American premiere on December 8, 2024, with a live virtual Q&A with Director Khyentse Norbu.

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 IBFF Official Selection Series events and screenings.

[pink pig lays across white crosswalk lines on a dark gray asphalt road bordered by dry grass on either side and dark forest in the background, with small figure at left and white stacked text of asian calligraphy and pig at the crossing]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.

Director Khyentse Norbu’s previous films include The Cup, Travellers & Magicians, and Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache, and he had a role in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha. He’s also known by his Tibetan Buddhist teaching name, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche.

Pig at the Crossing official website.