"Tukdam: Between Worlds"

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Tukdam: Between Worlds at the Buddhist Film Festival

Tukdam: Between Worlds, Donagh Coleman (USA/Tibet, 2022)

This feature documentary explores a phenomenon that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call "tukdam," advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled manner while in the middle of a meditation session. Although these Buddhists are legally dead according to modern biomedical standards, they often stay sitting upright in meditation posture. Remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death.

The film follows the first ever scientific research into tukdam by neuroscientist Richard Davidson’s team, juxtaposed with intimate death stories of tukdam meditators and Tibetan understandings of the death process. Unfolding in cinematic dialogue between scientific and Tibetan perspectives, the film unravels our certainties about life and death, and shows how differently death can be construed in different cultural contexts.

The film will be screened in English and Tibetan with Catalan subtitles.

A film in the 2024 edition of the Buddhist Film Festival of Catalunya.

October Film Festivals in and around Barcelona

October’s calendar is packed with an impressive list of film festivals in and around the city. Check out our article October Film Festivals in and around Barcelona where you'll find gritty investigative documentaries, hair-raising fantasy and horror flicks and everything in between!

For more events check our online events calendar.