ArtFilms-

An award-winning documentary on a burning issue in world politics

The high-ranking spiritual leader of Tibet, the KARMAPA Lama, has fled Tibet to the Dalai Lama in India and brought the leadership of China, who has used him as a political puppet, to a state of confusion. Due to this event the whole future of TIBET and the CHINESE Tibetan policy is now faced with a new situation.

The Karmapa Lama who has valiantly escaped the strict control of China is now in the centre of attention of the world and the media.

KARMAPA - TWO WAYS OF DIVINITY (58 min.) is a unique, award-winning documentary on the Karmapa and how China has used him as a springboard in its politics that have lead to violation of religious rights.
On another level the film tells the story of the existence of two rival candidates for Karmapa and how the situation of two Karmapas has lead to an internal crisis of the Buddhist denomination, as proponents split into different camps.

The documentary has been realised in 1994 -1998 in Tibet, China and India and it presents also the Dalai Lama and representatives of the Chinese Government.
    The film has been awarded the EUROPEAN UNION HUMANITARIAN AWARD and at the Gavá film festival as the best produced and edited documentary.
    Karmapa - a Voyage on the Roof of the World (58 min.), the follow-up documentary to the film, is about the many-year-long realisation of the difficult project and how the film-makers, for example, visited Tibet three times, meeting with the Karmapa Lama. The documentary also tells the story of the moral dilemmas the film-makers faced in front of a sensitive issue and the shock the Chinese Government experienced when the film revealed the skilfully intrigued aims of its politics.

In the turn of the millennium the Karmapa who had lived in Tibet fled from the restrictive and oppressive policy of China, leaving the Tsurphu Monastery.
The incident was a serious setback for the Chinese "policy of religious assimilation".
   Apart for the official support of the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa who fled from the Tsurphu Monastery is also backed by a majority of the Tibetan Buddhists. Even so, the other Karmapa still has an active, growing group of supporters.
The conflict of the two Karmapas still remains unsolved.

With: Karmapa in Tsurphu Monastery, Karmapa in India,
Dalai Lama, Shamar Rinpoche, Zhu Xiaoming

Directed by: Arto Halonen
Written by: Arto Halonen
Viliam Poltikovic
Photography: Timo Heinänen f.s.c.
Jari Pollari
2nd Director: Viliam Poltikovic
2nd Camera: Miroslav Soucek
Camera-assistant: Harri Sipilä
Sound: Viliam Poltikovic
Arto Halonen
Sound Supervising: Martti Turunen
Composer: Vesa Mäkinen
Editor: Arto Halonen
Narrator: Peter Coyote

Co-producers/Financers: Yle TV2 Documentaries
Czech TV
The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture in Finland AVEK
Foreign Affairs of Finland/Department for International Development Cooperation

Distribution: Media Luna/Germany

Produced by: © Art Films production/Arto Halonen 1998

Important dates

Around 500 BC. According to the Buddhist tradition, prince Siddhartha is enlightened and becomes the first Buddha. He predicts that a great religious leader will be born 1600 years after him. He would be a master of miracles and prophecies, and he would be called Karmapa.

1110. Karmapa is born. he becomes the leader of the buddhist Karma Kagyü tradition. The second Karmapa (1204 - 1283) is the first living buddha to be reborn into the same mission, initiating the tradition of reincarnating religious leaders.

1391. 1st Dalai Lama is born and assumes the leadership of the Buddhist Gelugpa sect. The sect gradually grows into the most extensive tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and Dalai Lama becomes Tibet's spiritual ruler.

1959. China occupies Tibet. Tibet's spiritual ruler the 14th Dalai Lama and the third highest authority, the 16th Karmapa, go into exile with a number of other Buddhist.

Tibet's second highest spiritual authority the 10th Panchen Lama is prisoned by the Chinese. He is isolated and "reprogrammed" during a longer period. The practice of Buddhism is beginnig to be restricted in Tibet.

1981. The head of the Karma Kagyü sect, the 16th Karmapa, dies in the United States. The search committee responsible for the election of a reincarnation will not find a new candidate.

1989. The 14th Dalai Lama receives the Nobel Peace Prize. The 10th Panchen Lama dies in Beijing.

1992. In cooperation with the Chinese goverment two members of the search committee find a new 17th Karmapa, who is the first high religious leader to stay in Tibet since 1959.

China cooperates with the 17th Karmapa, challenging through him the position of the Dalai Lama as the head of Tibetan Buddhism. Through a living Buddha of its own China infiltrates into the selection process of Tibet's spiritual rulers.

1994. The third member of the search committee does not back up the Karmapa in Tibet. He finds another candidate, which is also enthroned as the 17th Karmapa, in India.

The situation with the two Karmapas sparks off outbursts of violence within Buddhism.

1995. A search committee authorized by the Dalai Lama finds a reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama in Tibet. China rejects the choice. The 6-year old boy is taken to Beijing and held under arrest. China appoints its own 11th Panchen Lama.

China announces that the appointment of future spiritual leaders in Tibet will have to be endorsed by the Chinese central government. Their obvious intention is to instal their own Dalai Lama when the present Dalai Lama dies.

2000. In the turn of the millennium the Karmapa who had lived in Tibet fled from the restrictive and oppressive policy of China, leaving the Tsurphu Monastry. Due to this event the whole future of Tibet and the Chinese Tibetan policy is now faced with a new situation.

BETWEEN CHINA AND TIBET

The Karmapa-project has changed my life greatly. While I have worked on my own ’spiritual process’, being in contact with the Buddhist world, my contradictory choice of subject has led me to many conflicting views and various tumults. It has provided me with an excellent possibility to separate the sheep from the goats, and to observe both sincerity and calculation - the conscious and subconscious influence of politics and religion on our behaviour and the making of our morals.

It was expected that Chinese officials would condemn the final outcome of the film…and so they did. The film does reveal some sensitive and unscrupulous actions, which the official China would rather keep quiet about. But I was much more surprised by the division the film created among the Buddhist viewers. The film deals with the crisis that tears the Buddhists apart and the two Karmapas who are in the eye of the storm… as well as the question of who is the “right” spiritual leader.

The contradictory situation is inevitably reflected in the viewing experience of the Buddhists, although I feel I deal with the subject impartially and truthfully…and maybe because of that. Most of the Buddhist viewers seem to appreciate the film but some of them are offended that both Karmapas are in the same film: ”One must not present a lesser being next to a deity as if they were equal.” They think that the journalistic approach of truth and equality is secondary to their religion.

Although Buddhism in its philosophical quality is a unique doctrine, it is not easy to walk its sympathetic ways without stumbling. While China is systematically trying to change history, some representatives of spiritual matters are unconsciously guilty of the same sin, coloured by the thirst for power. Some for their party, others for their religion.

The film has, however, made an interesting tour around the world. The fear of the Chinese scared some film festival organisers and TV channel managers, but contradictory examples abound as well.

The traditional film festival of the just-turned-Chinese Hong Kong bravely chose the film into its repertoire. As one interested in the subject I wanted to partake in the festival, but because I knew I was an unwanted person in China, I hesitated. In the end, I decided to fly anyway, especially because visas still weren’t obligatory in Hong Kong unlike China.

The Karma Kagyu Buddhist Society of Hong Kong tried to ban the showing of the film with an army of lawyers. Everyone knew, however, that behind the request was the Chinese government that used the innocent Buddhist organisation as its shield. The censorship officials and the lawyers of the Hong Kong government were dealing with the matter.
Finally the film was despite everything shown. The publicity attracted a house full of people. I was approached by Hong Kong and foreign newspaper reporters. A brave American reporter organised a private screening for Hong Kong’s foreign correspondents. 100 correspondents arrived and to most of them China’s unscrupulous and calculated operation in the Karmapa situation was new information.

After the festival screening one of the members of the Karma Kagyu society dressed in civil clothing came to praise the film. He had bought several tickets for the organisations’ monks at their request but in the end only he had dared to come and watch the film. And these people were pretending to be behind the banning requests!

I was scared as well. Many people had warned me about the trip. I spoke diplomatically to the press so that I wouldn’t be guilty of ”agitation”, which could have been enough of a reason, and a legal one, for arresting me. I was rather relieved to leave Hong Kong behind.

While I was there, I wasn’t scared of the few Buddhist activists but the Chinese government and its methods of operation. I had made my film in favour of Tibet and the unique Tibetan Buddhism - including its most ardent representatives.

LINKS

The Karma Kagyu Intsitute. The cultural and educational organization under the direction of His Holiness the 17th Gualwa Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje
www.nalandabodhi.org
www.kagyu.org.nz

Dalai Lama of tibet. Offical site of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
www.tibet.com