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11th edition, September 30, October 1, 2 2016
With great delight we announce the opening movie of the eleventh edition of BFFE:
HEMA HEMA: SING ME A SONG WHILE I WAIT
from Bhutanese director Khyentse Norbu
The notion of INTER-BEING runs through this year’s festival.
A warm welcome friends and members.
We are delighted that BFFE continues with its 11th edition at the exquisite location at the EYE Film Museum. It is a reason to celebrate and come together, to meet new friends, cinema-lovers and wisdom-seekers, to connect and inter-act. With films that touch we are here again, because you are here.
BFFE aims to seduce you with films that explore the training of heartfulness, to open our hearts and to train our minds in altruism in order to develop tools to create a more compassionate society.
We are looking forward to a great Opening Night; Friday evening, we will have a musical introduction by Prawira Pyloo, a young guitarist, from 18:45—19:00. After Ms. Pyloo, there will be a festival introduction given by Babeth M. VanLoo, the festival director. Finally, we are very grateful and excited for the official opening with Her Excellency Ms. Pema Choden, Ambassador of Bhutan.
This year our theme is Inter-Being, a notion established by Zenmaster Thich Nhat Hahn. His engaged Buddhism will be elaborated upon in the film The 5 Powers, and specifically will also address the education of youth in Planting Seeds of Mindfulness, which will be further addressed in the open dialogue on Sunday afternoon, at MindfulCitizen.
We are truly joyful to open the festival with the newest film written and directed by Khyentse Norbu, HEMA HEMA: SING ME A SONG WHILE I WAIT, filmed in Bhutan, his country of birth. He is himself a revered reincarnate lama of the younger generation of Tibetan Buddhist teachers, known as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. He studied filmmaking in New York after working with Bertolucci on Little Buddha.
The beauty of Tibetan culture is expressed in several films, and this year we underline a new trend of films within the Chinese arena, such as the film Tharlo, made by a filmmaker of Tibetan descent within the Chinese line of production.
The art of Tibet is shared in several films but we cannot close our eyes to the pain and suffering still endured by its people, caused by the restrictions of the regime due to human rights violations of freedom of expression or religion.
Causes and conditions of acceptance of The Other we wanted to address by choosing such films as Angry Buddha (Hungary) and My Buddha is Punk (Myanmar).
And the necessary examination of mindfulness as a practice of true inner values versus its use as yet another commodity of the consumer society is addressed by the film The Mindful Revolution.
In collaboration with EYE, we pay hommage to Buddhist film classics with A Touch of Zen, an ode to Taiwanese director King Hu, in a very recent 4K restoration of the director’s cut – a must see for those of you who cherish the art of cinema.
We hope to welcome you and share with you yet another event of the art of cinema and culture of wisdom, as a collective sharing of values and inspiration.
May BFFE 2016 contribute to the wellbeing of all sentient beings.
-Babeth M. VanLoo, Festival Director
EYE FILM INSTITUTE
IJpromenade 1, 1031 KT Amsterdam
