30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

The Yarchen Gar Monastery is located at four thousand metres on an isolated plateau in Sichuan, Tibet. It is considered the largest monastery in the world. About twenty thousand Buddhist nuns live there. For three months, during the hundred coldest days of the year, filmmaker Jin Huaqing shared the lives of these nuns who conduct their extreme quest for spirituality by retreating to tiny shelters lashed by the freezing wind, praying seated in the snow and covered in nylon, smilingly sharing food and prayers in the huge temple hall. The camera also follows them when they stand before their guru, who questions them on the great subjects of life and death, karma and reincarnation, and when they listen to the doctor who teaches them how to diagnose illnesses by squeezing wrists or examining urine. Meanwhile, on the steep frozen ridges, vultures wait to feed on the bodies of the deceased nuns that are given to them for the "heavenly burial" on the great altar pervaded by the perfumed smoke of burning juniper.

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  Huaqing Jin

  Independent documentarist and teacher, his films have been selected in various international festivals (France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Korea, Japan). The awards received include the UNICEF Award in 2012 and the China Documentary Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film. He was a member of the jury of the 21st Asian International Film Festival in Vesoul. Since 2010 he has started giving workshops and video workshops to students from different parts of China.