A Gift for the Village
Directed by Tom Landon and Jenna Swann2010 59m
The film tells the story of the long connection between a Blacksburg, Virginia, artist and a prominent Buddhist lama and healer from the culturally Tibetan region of Western Nepal. In June of 2007 a team carried a large and beautiful painting, called a thangka, to a village in the Himalayas, and the village held a festival to celebrate its arrival. The film was made with the blessings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Vance was the first female and westerner to complete such a painting. The film team traveled to sacred sites including a recently discovered Himalayan cave of ancient Buddhist paintings, and documented a traditional way of life that is disappearing with the arrival of roads and electricity to the region.
Where to Watch A Gift for the Village
