“Daughters of Dolma” – A documentary about Tibetan Nuns in Nepal

The production team includes:

Alexander Co – Project Leader / Adam Miklos – Film Director and Editor /Nadezhda Buhova (Nadia) – Communications Manager /Stefan Salow – Productions Manager/ Tenzin Dolma – Translator and Subtitles Editor and Katarzyna Bylow-Antkowiak (Kasia) – Field Supervisor

Here’s an excerpt from a Q and A with the team who worked on the film that I found quite interesting:

What impressed you the most from your time living with the nuns?

Adam: The happiness and openness they showed towards us. I will never forget their smiles.

Stefan: I was impressed with the kindness and hospitality we encountered. Some of the nuns invited us to meet their family, stay in their homes, one of the nuns let us stay in a hotel owned by her family for a night. They were very friendly and open to us, at all times.

Tenzin: The things that impressed me the most is the fact that the nuns are so modern and into so many things like us. For example, they are very fond of English, Bollywood and Korean films but again they are so focussed in their Buddhist text studies and are not sidetracked by these other things like the technologies and movies. They are very good in their spiritual fields.

Nadia: Taking into account their rigid daily round, what impressed me the most was the nuns’ friendly and open interaction with each other and other people in the nunnery. They have a strict schedule of spiritual practices and serious studies, but the nuns remain particularly cheerful and even perky.

At times when technologies are ‘taking over’ the world, how do the nuns preserve their spirituality? Are they not tempted by lay life?

Stefan: Nuns can be tempted by lay life, and are allowed to quit the monastic life should they wish. The nuns we lived with were using technology as well, mobile phones and Facebook as well as DVD players, thus did not have to make the choice between either one life or the other. The life of Buddhist nuns is evolving with time. The Rinpoche (spiritual leader) we interviewed suggested that as long as technology does not distract the nuns from their practice, it is fine.

Tenzin: Well, with technologies taking over, it is not likely for the nuns to stay completely cut off from the modern developments. They are modern nuns and they have to keep track of what is happening in the world. But at the same time, they do not get sidetracked by these technologies because they already have the Buddhist teachings within them and the spiritual perception helps them focus on their religiousity.