Vara: A Blessing, the new film from director Khyentse Norbu (The Cup, Travellers & Magicians) is screening in theaters in several cities in North America this summer, including a Buddhist Film Foundation co-presentation on July 20 in San Rafael, CA.
The San Rafael screening takes place at the Smith Rafael Film Center, recently the site of IBFF 2015 BAY AREA and its Benefit Nepal Film Festival. The director will attend and will join actor/activist Peter Coyote on stage for a post screening conversation and Q&A. Information and tickets are through Brown Paper Tickets.
The film has screened in numerous film festivals around the world, premiering as the Opening Night Presentation at Busan International Film Festival and garnering the Best Feature Film award at Tribeca Film Festival’s online competition.
Set against the lush countryside in an Indian village not yet caught up to the modern world, Vara: A Blessing, intertwines vivid dreamworlds of Hindu gods, classical bharatanatyam dance, and music. It’s a timeless story of love and devotion. A young woman named Lila (Shahana Goswani) and her mother Vinata (Geeta Chandran), a temple dancer wed to a Hindu god, find themselves on the fringes of society, struggling to make ends meet. Shyam (Devesh Ranjan), a low-caste village boy with dreams of becoming a sculptor in the city, asks Lila to model for him. Lila agrees, even though she knows that if they are discovered, both their lives will be in jeopardy.
Writer-director Khyentse Norbu is also known to many as Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, a highly regarded Tibetan Buddhist teacher. His rigorous classical Buddhist training, nonsectarian approach, and passion for filmmaking make him one of the most provocative figures in Buddhism today. He began his film career as a technical advisor to renowned director Bernardo Bertolucci during the making of Little Buddha (in which he also has a small role), and began writing his first screenplay while in Bodhgaya, India. He keeps an extraordinarily active teaching schedule around the world, and supervises Dzongsar Monastery in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, retreat centers in Bhutan, and Buddhist colleges in India and Bhutan. Through Siddhartha’s Intent International, he has established and maintains teaching and practice centers in Australia, Canada, the United States, and he founded and chairs three nonprofit organizations, Khyentse Foundation, Lotus Outreach, and 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The film’s cinematographer Bradford Young is best known for his work on the Academy Award-winning Selma, and he was awarded the cinematography prize at Sundance 2013 for his work on two films at the festival, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Mother of George. Aradhana Seth, a veteran of many films including The Bourne Supremacy and The Darjeeling Limited, was the production designer, and famed director Wang Kar Wai’s editor, William Chang, took on those duties for this film.
The Hollywood Reporter called Vara: A Blessing “transcendence in action… a great visual feast.” Variety said “Ravishing visuals and an abundance of Indian dance and music provide a sensory tonic in Khyentse Norbu’s tale of forbidden love.”
