RITE OF PASSAGE

Kamila Delart

Director(s):

Whatever our beliefs regarding the life’s last journey, whatever the rites of passage our culture celebrates – the emotions triggered by the loss of a dear person are universal. What is different from culture to culture is how we deal with death. Do we keep a safe distance, pushing the grief away or do we face the impermanence of life head-on? Working on this documentary triggered so many thoughts, so many emotions in me. Maybe watching it will do the same for you…

SYNOPSIS: The bond between a spiritual teacher and his followers transcends time and space. And with Buddhism embracing suffering and death as a natural part of the worldly existence, and celebrating cremation as a rite of passage that may end the painful cycle of death and rebirth and open the doors to Nirvana - there is no space for tears…

Bidding a farewell to a beloved master, watching his mummified body go up in ritual flames and turn into ash thus becomes the teacher’s final lecture: an opportunity to love without attachment, to embrace the impermanence of the here and now and to come to terms with one’s own mortality that ceases to be an abstract concept the moment you hold in your hands the bones of a beloved person.